narrating kayoz

Clearing the fog of distractions

Listening to Encounter tonight I was struck by the idea of asceticism as removing distractions ("clearing the fog off the windscreen") rather than being about exerting discipline.

It was a climate change edition of Encounter, exploring "how people from three religious traditions have linked their concerns about Climate Change with the ancient teachings and practices of ascetics."

I only listened to the first half of the program on my way home (have downloaded the podcast to listen to the rest later), but even in that time I went from feeling inspired, to despair, to something like hope.

Inspired: Yes, I *must* try harder to declutter, to consume less, and to lead our family into a more 'simple' lifestyle;

Despair: it's too hard - I really don't want to live without creature comforts like evaporative cooling in summer and central heating in winter; it costs too much - to modify our house to be more efficient, for instance, although we have made some starts, increasing our insulation, putting up shade over the west side, having the evaporative cooler empty into a water tank to use on the garden; and takes too much time - I'm only just keeping up with the measly vegie garden I have planted this year, and the clutter, the clutter! How can I ever get on top of it?

Hope: The thing is all those distractions. If I could just clear some of them out of my life, maybe I would have more time to clear the clutter, to make things by hand and from scratch, to expand our vegetable garden and fruit tree plantings.

But what are the distractions? Is it blogging (when did I last write a post?)? Reading blogs? Is it social networking? Do I need to give up my at home computer hours? Is it TV? Is it reading escapist novels? Is it trying to write, or even planning to write? If I gave up that dream, if I settled for my 9-5, 3 day/week job, would that give me more time to focus on the important things in life? Or is that really one of them?

Since I've been pregnant and tired, I have done much less than usual of most of those things anyway, except for probably the two biggest time wasters, TV & novels. All the TV shows I've been watching are finished for the year now though, so that's an easy one to toss over - for the moment. But the fact is it never did take up that much time anyway, it's only because I've been pregnant (nauseous, tired etc) that I've watched more.

And unlike many of the critics, I really do value my online social networking time - not that facebook isn't full of time wasters, but it also lets me keep in touch with people I otherwise wouldn't, even family members who are overseas or across the country. 

And, I also value my sitting chatting with my husband after the kids are in bed & chores done, which is often what the evening consists of if we're not watching TV. This, what I'm doing now, is using up that time. But I need time to do this too. To think on paper (so to speak), to keep my finger on the pulse of my life.

Sometimes I fear the biggest distraction is none of these things, but a general tendency to laziness. I don't like housework (decluttering included), and I do like sitting around relaxing - chatting, reading, whatever.

The thing is, I don't think I'm going to change that about myself. And the very idea of becoming one of those people who never sit down, who spend all their evenings in chores, and who have (therefore) clean houses - well, it doesn't appeal. I mean, the clean house does. But the never sitting down? Not so much.

So what is the answer then? I don't want it to be about discipline. I want it to be about clearing away the fog to make things easier, not harder. But I don't think I've quite figured out how to do that yet. 

My zucchinis are being murdered!

I had a second attempt at planting out a zucchini two days ago.

The first one I planted got completely eaten by pests (slugs? snails? do earwigs cause damage too? cause we've got a lots of them), despite being surrounded by crushed egg shells, which seemed to work last year.

So this time I planted a more mature plant & added four snail traps (bowls of vegemite/sugar-water to attract them) and strewed around some lettuce and silverbeet leaves as slug traps - although that only works if you go out and collect them before they move on, which I failed to do last night.

 

As you can see from the close-up below though, it is *still* getting eaten. And if this is how it looks after two days...

 

You can see in the top right of that pick there's a leaf already completely eaten, and the others are suffering...

I've never had a problem growing zucchs before. Sure, they always end up with some powdery mildew, but it doesn't seem to stop them producing plenty of produce. And I might have lost the odd seedling, but again, not so it's mattered. So this is really rather disconcerting.

The Spring garden

I found some self-seeded oregano this morning, while out of the front planting out a few clumps of violets pulled out of my cousin's garden, and a purple daisy cutting from my own. Also a self-seeded grape hyacinth and a tiny violet plant - all on the edge of our so-called 'lawn'. I think I'm going to cultivate the un-lawn look just there and see if some more will come up next year.

I love when things come up by themselves. It's good when things we plant deliberately flourish, of course. But when things come up by themselves - and in a good spot - it seems as though we must be doing something right. It feels like that's how a healthy, productive garden should work. Permaculture, really.

On a separate topic - I can't wait to be eating fresh tomatoes out of my garden, instead of the tasteless shop-bought ones. If that's all we grew every year, it would still be so worth it.

Kids, garden, worms and more!

A post in dot points.

What? It's Spring, and I'm pregnant. I don't have time to do better than this! But lots of things are happening.

• Mikaela, for instance, has been out of nappies (except at night) since last weekend. We picked an awful time to do it, given she was sick - quite sick by Monday - but oh well. It's going reasonably well so far. A few more accidents than we had with Liam, but she is six months younger than he was. I know some people do it about a year or more earlier than this, and put up with accidents for longer, but I just don't have it in me for that. I'd much rather deal with nappies than accidents! But she was more than ready, and the weather is warming, so we've taken the plunge.


• Liam started Hapkido last week. He was over the moon with excitement about it afterwards. He's gone along to his second class today. Chris has been doing Hapkido on and off for a few years (though his real background is in Taekwondo), but mostly off for the past couple due to various injuries (not to mention ankle surgery). However, he is back for his first class in a year today and very happy about it. They have a 'parents & kids' session - two classes side by side - so we're hoping that will work out for the two of them for a while. I am more than happy to have it not be an after school activity that I will have to drag Mikaela and the baby to next year.
  
  Getting Liam into a martial art has been something Chris has always been in favour of, though he agreed with me that he shouldn't start too young, so he's happy too. And I've ruled that it's going to count as his summer activity (instead of cricket, tin pin bowls or basket ball, which were Liam's other plans), so I'm happy. I'm a bit strict about limiting out of school activities - he's always had swimming on Sundays, but aside from that, the AFL this winter was his first regular extra-curricular commitment.
  
  I'm mean about it partly out of a philosophy that really wants to limit those sorts of structured activities, and partly out of an awareness that eventually there will be three of them to ferry around.


• Liam also started knitting at home this week. He's been knitting at school since the start of second term (ie about April), but on Friday he convinced me to buy him some needles (5.5mm) and wool from the Orana shop, and he's been working on a 'stick holder' (don't ask) enthusiastically since. One row at a time (or less), but almost all his own work. I was a bit worried that he would end up asking me to do most of it, but so far so good.


• It is Spring and the gardening fever has hit. Well, in theory anyway. In practice I'm trying not to ask too much of myself, given I'm only just getting over the morning sickness part of pregnancy (despite being 16 weeks now, and a few days).
  
  I was looking at my vegie garden the other day, and realised that if I did nothing but maintain it (weed, water and harvest) we'd most certainly have silverbeet, parsley (both of which are still there from last year), and volunteer tomatoes - at least tom thumbs - peas, maybe snap beans, and probably potatoes. Which wouldn't be so bad. Oh, and cos lettuce, some of which have already come up, self seeded.
  
  However, I don't plan to leave it at that. So yesterday Kaely and I got out and planted some sugar snap peas (seeds) and some rocket (seedlings). Next month we'll get in some zuchinnis and tomatoes, and hopefully between now and then I'll sow some carrot and spring onion seeds. Oh, and I really want to get some basil in this year. And Liam wants corn.
  
  Pretty basic. I'm not going to bother with beans this year - unless maybe one or two plants - because we just couldn't keep up with them last year. We're not really bean eaters, except raw in salads or straight off the bush. And having realised that if I do nothing, we'll still have some harvest, I now feel that anything is a bonus. But I have set myself up for better success this year by not planning too much.
  
  Same with the rest of the garden. We've got weeds galore coming up out the front, so I must get out and pull them up after the next rain, but aside from that if I get nothing but maintenance done I'll be happy. We put in a second apple tree and a medlar at the very last gasp of the bare root tree planting season (or slightly beyond, if the truth be known), and next year we'll try for some more fruit trees. But I remind myself that we will shortly have three young children, and that neither one of us has (or even really wants) a good protestant work ethic. We like to read, rest, sit around and chat, that sort of thing. So if we don't get the garden to look as good as my parents' garden does, well, it's nice to remember that theirs wasn't anything close to what it is now until I was in high-school. So as long as we get some more fruit trees in over the next couple of years, we'll be right.


• Also on the gardening front, I got a garden bed worm farm last weekend, which we are planning to use to process all the poo Lochie produces. Seriously, that dog is just a pooing machine! Obviously we won't haven't put it near any food plants, but I am hoping that we can move it around the garden to a different spot every six-twelve months and really build up the worm population in our soil, as well as deal with the poo problem. The worms supplied with it are a mix which includes both composting worms, and a kind of earth worm which will work more to take the goodness of the worm castings down into the soil. It sits directly in the garden bed, so there's no need for us to remove the castings ourselves. Lovely system. Hope it works!
  
  Unfortunately Chris wormed Lochie right before we got the farm, so we've had to wait a week to begin feeding them the poo. And that's going to be an issue for one week of every month. But processing the poo to be useful (instead of polluting) three weeks out of four is still a huge improvement over what we've been doing.


• I'm 16.5 weeks pregnant. I *think* I've started feeling the odd movement - as of Wednesday morning - but I'm not completely convinced yet. I know that with both the other kids I had a similar experience, and then later when I was sure I decided that's what I'd been feeling all along. But I also know that there've been times between pregnancies when I've felt some gas moving around in my gut and thought it felt exactly like the baby moving around in later pregnancy. This early it's a different feeling, but still, I'm withholding judgement. It's still exciting though.


• Edited to add: And Liam's reading is coming along in leaps and bounds. I got him some new Zac Power books from the library, not realising these were longer with smaller text. At first he struggled a little (though not as much as with Harry Potter, of which we are still reading a couple of pages at a time in between Zac Power books), but a few days later and he's doing really well with them.

Okay, I'd better start getting dinner organised now. I promised Kaely we would make pancakes for dinner, so she's been agitating to get started for half an hour already.

Things I would be blogging about if I wasn't so tired...

• Web 2.0 in government - it is fun to be getting to be part of this conversation (in my work, not on my blog - because of the tiredness y'see). Interesting post from Lindsay Tanner (and some interesting comments) on his blog at fairfax digital.
• Funny things Mikaela is saying these days - like how she says 'Munooz' for both muesli and music. I keep meaning to record all this for the 'baby book', but I am not doing very well lately.
• How Liam thinks he is going to be Joseph in his school nativity play on Friday morning - he's pretty sure, he says, because he was Joseph again in the practice today and he can carry the candle really straight. This is a sweet little play they do in kindergarten where all the kids sing the whole thing, but some kids also have 'parts', while others are the angels who file in around the outside. It lasts for maybe ten minutes (including the procession in), and then we all get morning tea and school is over for the year.
• The vegie garden, which is finally starting to look like one - we are picking silverbeet and snow peas and stacks of parsley and will very soon be picking zucchinis and cherry tomatoes as well.
• How Liam decided he wanted to get involved in the garden and so he has his own little patch in which we (he and I together) have planted potatos and cucumbers (I know, not really a match companion planting-wise, but they were two things we hadn't been able to fit into the main garden).
• Our littlest Silky chook who has (I think) Mareks disease, which I am treating with, I kid you not, a mix of cranberries, brazil nuts, garlic, plus to drink pomegranate juice and gatorade. I got it from a chook forum (okay, I'll find the link... Backyard Poultry forum), and it seems to be helping.
• Out new car, which we've converted to run on LPG which I'm pretty sure is a good thing (and was helped by a $2000 government rebate) (but how we have to hurry up and sell the old one so I don't get into the habit of driving to work like I did today).
• How hungry I am right now
• But how I need to go to bed and so I think food - and more blogging - will have to wait for another day.
• g'night.

Enoughness

I came across the idea of 'enoughness' recently, when talking with a colleague who studied sociology with Ian Hughes at the Australian National University (ANU) some years ago. Apparently Hughes (who was an anthropologist & sociologist - odd mix I know) did some work in Papua New Guinea, where he came across this concept.*

In a particular community he visited there, people actually lived the concept of enoughness. They had an idea of how much was enough - enough to see them through with a little extra for a slow year - and then stopped accumulating more. Instead they moved to putting their energy into cultural improvement - creating, adding to their culture.

Last year for my Blog Action Day post, I wrote about consumerism, and my efforts to avoid the indoctrination of my children with the materialist ethic of our culture. Blog Action Day last year was about the environment. This year it's about poverty, but I find myself writing about almost the same subject.

Imagine if everyone in Australia had, and practiced, the concept of enoughness. Instead of constantly wanting more, we could say, that's enough - and then give of ourselves to our community. There wouldn't be any unemployment, because people would be working less. Community organisations wouldn't be struggling for lack of volunteers, because people would have plenty of time to give back - helping out at a soup kitchen or running a protest rally or listening to kids read at school or whatever.

I struggle personally with this concept all the time. I am as materialistic as the next person, and though I try to resist it, I often fail. And I don't mean that I just fail to avoid consuming. What I mean is that I fail to avoid wanting. You may say there's nothing wrong with wanting, if you are able to avoid acting on the want. Sure - it's our actions we are responsible for, not our emotions. There's something to that, but I'd sure like to be able to overcome the emotion too. To figure out exactly what it is that drives the want, and to beat it.

But back to enoughness. How do we know when something is enough? At the moment, Chris and I both work part-time, so that one of us is (almost) always home with Mikaela (and Liam after school). Of course, we always feel that we are struggling a bit with money as a result, but really we're not. We just can't buy the things we want.

Things like a bigger hard drive so we can put all our music into iTunes and onto our iPod. We don't need that but we really want it. Things like a bike for Chris so he could ride with Liam, and maybe even work up to riding to work (we both usually take the bus at the moment). Hey, maybe even a bike for me. Of course there's also non-material consuming like dinners out or going to see a movie (either of which we can really afford to do *occasionally* anyway).

And then there's the really big one: things like a bigger house (with a bedroom for each of the (planned) kids, and maybe even a study as well), with a bigger yard. Why do we feel we need that? Because it's what most of our friends have, or at the very least expect to have within the next few years. We have bedroom for each of the kids at the moment if we give up the study. But we are hoping to have another kid (isn't two enough? I hear you ask), so then two kids will have to share *and* we'll have to give up the study.

But you know what? So what? Kids share all the time. We could put the computer in a corner of our bedroom. But I grew up with my own room from the age of six (when my Dad moved out and I got the study!), most of Liam's friends have their own rooms (or will have within a few years, base on their parents intentions), and well... it seems good. I mean, really.

For Liam and his friends to be able to go build lego in Liam's room is really good at the moment, because Mikaela wants to follow Liam everywhere, but she just is not fun for him to have around when he's trying to build lego space ships. At the moment Kaely is still in our room (and we're still in the study!), but that can't last if we have another baby. So yeah, I would love to have another bedroom so they could each have their own.

But if I gave up on that plan? I would suddenly feel immeasurably richer. And then the presure to work more would diminish a little. And if I could give up on all the other wants, the pressure to work more would diminish a whole lot.

The blog action day theme is poverty, and here I am talking about my own richness and desire for more. But what I'm really thinking is that if everyone who had as much as I do (or more), stopped, if we all said "that's enough", and started using the rest of our time and money to contribute - be it by writing a book, painting a painting, planting trees, or continuing in our seventy-hour-a-week jobs but donating our excess income to helping people who don't have enough  - well, I wonder how long it would take to eliminate poverty around the world?

_________
* A google search hasn't turned up any information, so I'm not entirely sure of my facts here, but for the purposes of this blog post it doesn't really matter.

Befuddled and bothered by climate change and colds

I read a(nother) scary article on climate change the other day - how it's happening faster than experts were predicting, etc, and how dry continents like Australia specifically will be impacted over the next forty odd years. I must say it was sobering to realise that in forty years I'll be rather past my prime, but even more sobering to think about the world my kids will be trying to make their way in.

I wondered - if we really took this seriously, would we be trying to have another baby? Not for the reason I remember my peers spouting back when we were in our teens - that the world was just too nasty a place subject them to - but more just in terms of the added burden more people place on the planet's resources, and more specifically on our own resources.

Well, we are still going to try for a third baby, climate change (and many other practical considerations) be damned. But we're also going to sit down and plan out a bit more concretely what we should/can/will do to climate-change-proof our own lives. We already turn off things at the wall, use (mostly) energy saver lights, and will have replenished our roof insulation within the month. But bigger projects we've talked about like getting a big tank put in, a proper grey water system (as opposed to the hose out the window type), solar panels - those things we can't afford right now, but can be more seriously about planning for. And then there are other things like putting in as many fruit trees as we can fit and getting better at growing our own food.

Of course, some of these depend on whether we are really staying in this house for the long haul or not. It is west facing, on a weird shaped block which gives us little good sunny yard space and has one less bedroom than we'd like. But it's got a great view, it's in a good location for our needs, it's got some lovely things about the yard as well, and one less bedroom means a smaller carbon footprint anyway.

That is some of the sort of conversation we've been having in our house over the past few days. Interspersed with conversations about planting heirloom tomatoes, getting another Silky chook or two and why we have come down with yet another cold. But much time and many kid-focussed activities have passed since I started writing this post this morning, and additionally my brain is now anti-histamine befuddled.

Eggs!

Having weekends in which to get things done is great. But some things can even be done during the week with kids in tow.

Our new, permanent chook-run fence still needs a gate. We bought a screen door from a junk yard, but it's a little narrow for the space. The plan is to reduce the space just at the points where the hinges go by screwing in some cut-offs from the hardwood sleepers we used to edge our new vegie garden last year, and on the other side do the same thing where the latch fits. Except I think we're one piece short. Also we still need to get a face plate (I think that's what it's called) for the door latch to fit into, but my step-father reckons he probably has one lying around somewhere.

The problem is, Chris and I are both seriously lacking in the handy genes you need to do all this sort of stuff. And add to that, Chris likes to do things properly. Me, I'm more of a "get it done, good enough will do" sorta gal. But, now Chris can't really do much of this stuff anyway, because of the tendonitis in his hands, which is just the sort of impetus I need to get it done myself - sort-of. So on Tuesday, while Kaely got soaked half emptying one of the our small rain-water tanks, and Liam got filthy digging in the dirt, which quickly became digging in the mud thanks to Kaely, I wired in the screen door. I wired it in on both sides, so it's not openable, but it does stay in place, right in the middle of the gate space. And it does keep the chooks in and Lochie out.

The part of the yard we are giving over to the chooks is the part that has the gate into it from the front of the house, so we can get into the chook yard through that gate, and we can get into the rest of the yard through the back door. The back-yard also has another gate down the other end that we don't use much, but we can. So this system will work, even if it's not perfect. I do plan to get that gate done properly at some point, and the downside of my 'get it done now' method is that getting it done properly is now no-doubt further away than ever. But in the meantime we have collected four eggs, and discovered that our little australorp-wyandotte cross, Speckles, has started laying. She's just a little thing - about a third the size of her rooster brother - and she has a really dreadful scoliosis, so we weren't sure laying eggs successfully was in her future.

Added to that, this week has felt almost like Spring - or at least like August - and so I am getting inspired to get serious about the garden again. It's an exciting feeling for me.

Another rooster

Have I mentioned yet that another one of our chickens has turned into a rooster? She - or rather he - didn't start crowing until well over 20 weeks, which I thought was supposed to be unheard of. And he is completely non-aggressive, nothing like the silky rooster we gave back a few months ago. The big chooks, who are about half his size now (he is enormous) have him completely intimidated, but he isn't aggressive to the other remaining 'new' chook, Speckles, (who is tiny, about half the old chooks' size, or a lot smaller than them anyway), either, and in fact those two are basically inseparable.

They - the new chooks - must be about 35 weeks old by now, so quite fully grown. Out of four we bought the first weekend in February, two have turned out to be roosters, one, speckles, has a massive sclerosis and is very small, and the last one, Fluffy, our remaining silky, has moved out to the front of our house (still a fenced space, though she could get out if she wanted) to escape persecution. We're still planning to get a (silky) playmate for her, though surprisingly she seems relatively content on her own.

We haven't decided whether to get rid of Dottie, the roster, or not. We were planning too, but Chris suggested this morning that we just ask the neighbours whether she is bothering them, and if not maybe we can keep her. I mean him. He is a gorgeous bird, a Australorp-Wyandotte cross, with rich green feathers and a glossy tail. We're all quite attached to him now, and Liam is very attached to the idea that he could mean we get baby chickens next Spring (though Liam doesn't yet know how this works). He made me promise that if we do get rid of him we'll get some fertilised eggs - of course, first we need a broody chicken. The problem I foresee with getting fertilised eggs is ending up with more roosters who we haven't the heart to eat... But anyway, that's a problem for another day I suppose.

June is National $21 challenge month

We have taken up the $21 challenge this week. That is, the challenge to feed our family for $21 for a week. That's not counting food we already have in the house of course. The idea is to use what you have in your house, cook from scratch, and see just how you can do without so much packaged food.

Our grocery spending week starts on Wednesday. And I'm afraid I miscalculated in the shops last night and I already went over - I think I spent $23 on food. Oops. But that will be it until next Wednesday night.

The $23 covered milk (5 litres, which will last our family about four days), powdered milk (that was over $5 on it's own!) so that we can use that in cooking, making the fresh milk last longer, cheese (1kg block of tasty cheese lasts our family about a week), and fruit (8 apples, 4 bananas and 5 mandarins) - in addition to the few apples we had left from last week, that's enough for an apple each day in our morning porridge, for Liam to take two pieces of fruit to school each day, and a few pieces left over to eat, which the kids will no doubt gobble down in  a matter of two days or so.

We couldn't do it every week - well, not if we want to drink that much fresh milk and eat that much cheese - because I didn't buy any vegies and we would normally have another fruit shop mid-way through the week. And of course we would some weeks need to buy other things like flour and honey (honey we could have used this week) and whatnot. But it was/is still an interesting exercise. Mikaela and I baked some plain vanilla biscuits this morning, and we will have to make our own bread on the weekend. We have enough potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots and onions to cook a roast on the weekend (and a free range chook in the freezer that I got on special a week or two ago), and some frozen vegies to go with them. And we have a couple of pumpkins left from our pathetic autumn harvest - though I'm going to be using up one of those in a pot of pumpkin soup for Liam's class at school next Thursday. But aside from that we tend to buy our vegetables fresh each week, so luckily we have lots of frozen meals at the moment (several each of vegetarian chilli, chicken and veg soup, basic tomato sauce (add beans or tuna or whatever), and bolognese sauce. So we just need to add pasta or rice to any one of those and we've got a meal.

In the Simple Savings newsletter about the $21 challenge (linked above) they ask "What canned food have you got?"

Tuna, corn, salmon and asparagus all make good fritters, risotto, quiche or potato cakes. Baked beans are a good addition to casseroles, sausage bakes, soups and toasted sandwiches. Tomatoes are great for casseroles, pasta sauce and soup. Turn tinned fruit into puddings, muffins, crumbles and pies.

Well, we have very little of any of those things at the moment, except tuna which we have in abundance due to a recent good special. But we will be changing that over coming weeks, as we make a habit of stockpiling. We do have some food stockpiled from when its been on special (we could probably survive the week just on the salsa, rice crackers and tuna we have in the cupboard if we needed to), but not basics like tinned tomatoes or dried beans. That's going to change, because I want to do two things to save more money

1. Buy more food in bulk (eg flour and dried beans)
2. Go to supermarkets less

I'm assuming that by stockpiling more, I'll be able to cut down on supermarket shopping significantly, and just go tot he markets to buy fruit and veg. (Though there is also the milk and cheese issue.) And I'm hoping that by doing this we'll be able to afford to buy more organic food. That's the plan. And now that I am practically done with my masters project (if not, quite, actually), I am hoping to have some more thinking space to devote to this sort of thing. I'm also hoping that we will be able to finish the permanent chook run fence this weekend, so we can start collecting our eggs again. Though we may then need to spend more money on food for the dog!!

Re-skilling for simply living

Rhonda, from Down to Earth is asking "what you have at your home that helps you live simply. Do you have water tanks, knitting needles, a sewing machine, solar panels or a solar oven? How have you reksilled yourself? What do you know now that you didn't know last year?"

She's talking about the aspects of 'simple living' that are not about food, and the money quote (from my perspective) is:

Simple living isn't all about cooking from scratch and stockpiling, it's a holistic approach to life that relies as much on your silent partners working away in the background, and your ability to reskill, to look after what you have and to produce as much as you can at home. Sometimes there is a price to pay to have the hardware installed, but often our lives are made easier and greener by just learning how to do something we couldn't do before.

This is part of why I am knitting a dishcloth - not for the sake of the dishcloth as such (we don't need any new dishcloths at the moment), but to improved my less than impressive knitting skills. There's a part of me that doesn't really think I have it in me to be a good knitter - too impatient, not detail oriented enough, completely unwilling to unpick (or whatever you call it in knitting) if I see that I've made a mistake. (Knitting dishcloths is about perfect for me, because in a dishcloth it really doesn't matter how badly or how often I stuff up the pattern - it's only a dishcloth.) And in fact, sewing would probably be a better skill to learn, because as Rhonda says, being able to mend clothes can make them last a lot longer. But I prefer knitting, so knitting is what I am doing right now. And you know what? We can always use new dishcloths.

Reusing soft plastic (eg bags)

Via Riana I just came across this etsylabs tutorial on how to reuse plastic bags (or other soft plastic). It's all about how to fuse several of them together, using an iron, and then make them into all sorts of things - reusable shopping bags being the most common thing mentioned, but I was thinking maybe I could make some big and heavy enough to cover part of the chicken run. Someone else suggested covering a greenhouse, but didn't actually report back on whether it worked.

The only problem of course is that we mostly use fabric bags now for our shopping, so we don't end up with many plastic bags, and the ones we do get are used up on dog poo or general garbage pretty quickly. But then someone mentioned the bags dry cleaning comes back in, and bread bags. Other people commented that they found the slightly heavier bags (Target got several mentions) more reliable than the thinner, cheaper bags (I assume supermarket bags) which sometimes wrinkle. So it might take some experimenting.

And I would also only do it outside on the deck, where we conveniently have an outdoor powerpoint, to avoid fumes - someone posted this warning in the comments:

What a cool idea! I hate to spoil anyone's fun, BUT I think it should be mentioned that this should be done in a

WELL VENTILATED

area or that you use an organic vapor mask or a respirator. Melting and potentially burning plastics creates sometimes harmful fumes, some of which are linked with embryonic mutagens.

Better safe than sorry.

But all in all, I have to say I'm feeling inspired. Better finish my dishcloth first though... not to mention my masters project!

Essay/silkie/knitting/colds a post in dot points

So much to say, so little time. So tonight, a post in (largely unrelated) dot points.

• My masters project is due in in one week and one day. Luckily my supervisor said (without me asking) that I could have an extension of two or more weeks, because they're all going to be too busy with marking other papers to get a panel together before then anyway. This is lucky because I've just realised that to get it bound and posted is going to take the better part of a week. Also because I am not as close to being happy with either the essay or the fiction as I had hoped to be by this point. On the other hand, I *really* don't want this to eat into my month of two day weekends before I go back to work. So I may ended up working quite hard on it this week.
• My sister gives really good feedback. Think I might impose on her to read my essay as well...
• Our little silkie chicken (who has moved to the front of our house, which is really around the side of the block, to avoid the bigger chickens, who can't fit through the fence) has taken to coming right up onto our front doorstep sometimes. Today she was sitting up there as I came out of the house, with our cat following me. The cat - who has rarely gotten that close to any chicken, that I've seen, almost touched noses with Fluffy (as we affectionately call her), then walked on, disinterested.
• All of us in the family seem to have yet another cold. So far it is mild, but by g-d I am sick of it.
• I am two thirds of the way through knitting a pretty little dishcloth with multiple stuff-ups in the pattern. Diana sent me another pattern (or three) which sounds easier, so I will try that next. My cousin (who has two small children, four months older and twelve months younger than Kaely, and whom I see every week) laughed at me when I told her I was knitting a dishcloth (in the nicest possible way). So I said I would have to write a whole blog post to explain my interest, starting with my urban by composting childhood, in which my parents read grassroots magazine and fantasised about moving to the country, much as I have often done. That post yet to come.

Crafty autumn days

Liam's school had their annual autumn picnic on Sunday. Normally I would say 'we' had it, especially since as class co-ordinator of Liam's class I was involved in some of the organisation, but actually I didn't go - I was at home trying to re-write my essay for my master's project (which is driving me up the wall at the moment, but that's a whole other post!).

The autumn picnic is usually a lovely family day, with everything from sack races to sausage sizzles to home made soup to the craft table (the organisation and running of which is job of us kindy parents). This year it turned out to be the coldest day of the season so far, but a good time was still reportedly had by all.

Liam made this gnome and gods-eye at the craft table. Someone showed him how to do blanket stitch and got him started on the gnome and he did the rest himself, and the gods-eye he did completely by himself, having made his first one at the school's Spring Fair last year.

This is one of the things I love about Orana. All the 'hand work' they do. This year Liam has mastered finger knitting and French knitting in kindergarten, he brought home a little basket his teacher sewed for him out of his finger knitting, and is now working on the French knitting - two strands of wool at once too (for both finger and French). They don't learn to write until class one (next year), but this handwork is part of the way they prepare the hands and mind for that sort of handwork. And in class one they also start 'proper' knitting. I think they start with knitting socks or something, and progress to a hat at some point (maybe in a later year though).

I was never very crafty as a child - oh I learned the basics of knitting and French knitting, but I never actually completed a project. I all but failed 'textiles' (sewing, weaving etc) in year seven. I did do a short course in sewing with stretch material when I was about 18, out of which I got a few clothes and my still very basic sewing skills. But that's about it. So I love the fact that Liam is learning some of these basics right at the beginning of school, and will continue to do so through the years.

Meanwhile I, as you know, am going to knit a dishcloth. And I'm going to attempt to make Kaely a sleeping bag. She is fast outgrowing the one she's in now, and I haven't been able to find any in op shops (thrift stores), so I put a request for a size 3 sleeping bag on freecycle,* and someone responded with the offer of a pattern, and said she may even be able come up with some old bits of fleece for me to use. So I'm going to give it a go. I may just become a handy person yet.

_____________

*I find this a challenging part of the whole 'no shopping' compact - asking for things. A lot of stuff I haven't been able to find second hand, and while in some cases that can just mean we don't buy it, some things we really do need. Okay, true, we don't *really* need them. Mikaela could wear a couple of extra layers to bed (she won't keep blankets on yet) and we could move her to a mattress on the floor (she's not safe in the cot without the sleeping bag any more, she can climb out). But... we need them enough, if you know what I mean.

So, I decided to start asking for things on freecycle. That's the whole point, after all, of freecycle - to move things around to where they will be used. But I do find it challenging to ask for 'handouts', especially as there seems to be a general philosophy that it should be more for giving than receiving (for instance I think the rules say you can't put a WANTED on until you've put an OFFER on). So I decided that I would have to put an offer on for every wanted I put on.** Not that that's a bad thing - after all, I am also trying to declutter. But even then, I do find the asking a little confronting. See how I am going into this long explanation about how I put 'offers' on and not just 'wanteds'? I find this discover about myself sort of interesting.

** (Footnote to the footnote:) So far I've put on two wanteds and two offers and got requests for both the offers, but for the wanteds have gotten a loan (which is good actually - it's a mini tramp for Chris to work his ankle on, and we're happy to be able to give it back at the end) and the offer of advice on how to make the item. So if this goes on the decluttering could become a reality. I still need to find things to put up for offer so I can request boys size 4/5 PJs, long sleeve tops & long pants - which I am counting as three separate requests. I am sort of wishing I kept those bags of clothes I finally give to Vinnie's (charity) the other week though.

Knitting dishcloths

I've decided to try knitting dishcloths (actually, we just call them sponges in my house, but I guess that's not a very accurate term really).

Rhonda at Down to Earth mentioned in a recent post that she makes her own (of course!), and then Diana gave me a heads up about how to do it and where the instructions are. The only thing I've ever knitted before is blankets in sold moss stitch (which is knit one, pearl one, then alternate it on the next row and so on - or is it knit one pearl one and then the same on the next row? See, I have to figure it out each time I start a new blanket!). I have knitted three and a half of these blankets so far. One for my best friend S's baby (another S friend!) who was born six months before Liam, one for Liam, one for Mikaela and I am half way through one for my sister's baby (who is not yet born).

This is the detail of the first blanket I made, for my friend's son.

Anyway, I am trying to live more simply, more sustainably, and of course, more cheaply. It doesn't seem likely that we will save much money by knitting dishcloths, since I use them until they are completely threadbare anyway, and it doesn't cost a lot to buy a new one every few months. But. I really want to become more able to make/fix/make do with things my self, and be less reliant on mass produced, probably through exploitation, store bought stuff. So I am going to give this a try. Of course, it's going to mean buying some cotton yarn, which you can't really get second hand, but I suppose I might be able to get end of run balls or something? I really have no idea. Anyway, that might be something to look into tomorrow morning after dropping Liam at school, since Chris is going to Melbourne for work, so I won't have my usual Monday writing day. I will post photos when I have something to show.

Update on our 'no shopping' compact

Just lately we haven't been going so well with the compact. We pledged to not buy anything new (with a few specific exceptions) for six months, starting in February. Actually, what I specifically said to Chris was 'until I go back to work', which would only have been about five months, but I've been saying six months, so I'm going to try to make sure we stick to that. Which is better financially anyway, since that means not till I've been working for a month will our 'spending freeze' end (actually, I think financially it might be better if we keep it going, but that's another discussion to have).

From the point of view of lifestyle change though, I don't think six months is enough. It's too easy to want things, and just put them off for a few months, rather than think of alternate ways to make/fix/do without them. It's still been good, it has made it easier - as I've said before - to 'just say no'. But for a lot of things it's more a delay than a real change.

Our latest failure is in building a fence. We need to build a permanent fence to separate the chooks from the dog, so that we can actually collect more than an egg a week or so. I'm sure they're good for Lochie's coat, but really, we want to eat them ourselves! My vision is that we would go to Revolve and find bits and pieces of timber, old gates, whatever, to reuse. Which we did do for building our chook houses (combined with straw bales), both the permanent one and the temporary one. But we are not very handy, and we do not have a lot of time, and... well the long and short of it is we went to Bunnings and bought wooden posts and fencing wire brand new. We will be able to reuse the chicken wire we already have I think, but that's about it. We still need to build a gate, so maybe we can get out to revolve to find some timber for it. (For that matter we still need to build a fence, but we have cemented in the posts, which was a bigger job than it sound, what with digging nice deep holes.)

Aside from that we've been pretty good I think, but in my head we are coming towards the end (even though actually we're only half through), so when I see something I really want I think 'well, maybe in August I'll get that'. So after we make it through this six month (and then buy all the things I've waited to buy!) I am going to try to talk Chris into going twelve months. I think that will be far more effective.

May is fix it month at Simple Savings (a site I just discovered last week), and I plan to really make an effort to do just that. I've already fixed a pair of Liam's sneakers (which he is so thrilled with, it makes me very happy). I'm sure I can come up with lots more things around the house that have been sitting around waiting to be fixed or thrown away. Some of them I may need to pay someone else to fix, but that's still better than throwing it away and buying a new one.

what I have been thinking lately (roosters, dogs, kids and writing, for instance)

I don't seem to be doing much with this blog lately. Even the baby book entries mostly just get written in my head, and end up being simple lists of words when I finally get something out.

It's frustrating because I have things to write about.

The kids, of course. How Liam seems to have turned a corner from the (slightly difficult) five and a half year old he was, to the six year old he is now, even though the books say six is supposed to be harder. How I think school plays a part, since he's now one of the older kids in his class (which has two years together, 4-6 year olds) and he seems to be feeling the responsibility (in a good way). How Mikaela is so delightful just now, but I'm still a bit afeared about what is around the corner, because she is such a determined little thing.

About future plans too. How I had a little freak out the other week that if we had another child we might end up with a "special needs" child of some sort and be stuck in this part of our lives (the part with seriously dependent beings) forever. But how I'm moreorless over that now and feeling a bit excited about starting to try to get pregnant again in a few months time, despite the very real possibility that it will take even longer than last time (me being 36 and Chris almost 40 now) or that it won't happen at all.

And that would naturally lead into the post where I suddenly remembered the fertility specialist saying to me that I might, possibly, have an early menopause, because of only having one ovary and who knows, the other one might not be all that great either (though I secretly think it is), and me suddenly realising the other day that I don't want to go through an early menopause for more reasons than just fertility - which is what I had focussed on up to now.

And then I have these posts I want to write about sustainable living, and how Lochie squashed most of our summer vegetable garden, has broken into both chicken runs and let the chooks out, let the chooks into the winter vegetable garden (which is toast now) and eats the eggs. But we're still glad to have him (mostly), though that was all a little depressing for a while. And Chris is starting obedience training with him next Tuesday night. And how one of our two Silkies turned out to be a rooster and started terrorising his sister, so we got rid of him and now she is much happier but I still think we need another little Silkie friend for her (or two, or maybe three).

And of course about The Compact and how that's going and how I feel about it, with a little more detail than that last post.

And then about writing, and how I am back to working on my fiction now (not the essay which I still haven't even got a draft of, or a conclusion for, despite it all being due in less than 2 months!) and am really enjoying the revision/re-writing process. I fact I *love* it. Who'd have thunk? (I always dread revision, and always love it once I get going. Weird.)

And no doubt a bunch of other things that don't come to mind right now because I can hear Kaely in the kitchen and I am wondering what she is doing, and because Liam is off sick today (just a cold with a mild fever I *think*, but there is chicken pox going around the school), but I've just remembered that I have to get everyone dressed and go into the school anyway, because I am the 'class co-ordinator' and I have to put out some pledge forms for the community hours scheme before term ends, and term ends tomorrow...

And now Liam is calling me, and I think Kaely is harrassing him, so I will go be a parent, and save thinking more about this blog for another day.

The Year of the Compact

The nice thing I am finding about living under The Compact is that I don't have to think about whether to buy things. I don't have to think about whether I should get such-and-such because it's on special, or whether we really need so-and-so. Unless it's in a second hand store of course, but they don't send out catalogues which makes it easier!

I have broken it already of course. I bought little pads and crayons to put in the kids' party bags for Liam's birthday. But I managed to borrow a 'happy birthday' banner (which Liam specifically requested) and a bundt cake tin for making Liam's volcano cake (first theme cake I've ever made, unless you count last year's - a 'lolly' cake, was requested, so we decorated with jelly beans and lolly bananas. Not very tricky.).

Mostly, though, we are doing well, and I am feeling good about it.

De-cluttering - the dilemma

The problem with trying to de-clutter my house is that in conflicts with my other plan to not buy anything new, to try to reuse as much as possible. How can I throw anything out/give anything away, when it might be useful some time? This is the problem I've always had, of course - it's why I am such a pack rat. But added to taking the compact, trying to teach Liam about reduce/reuse/repair/recycle, and trying to save money all at once? The urge to keep everything is even stronger.

I have managed to get a bunch of stuff out of my closet to give to Vinnie's, but even there I was less ruthless than I meant to be, and kept thinking But maybe I could use that to make something else, for the kids even. This from the woman who uses iron-on patches because sewing ones on seems far too complicated. Yeah.

On the other hand I just found a new blogger (new to me that is), who talks about sewing with fleece, which apparently doesn't even need hemming, and is fairly forgiving of mistakes. So maybe, maybe... And she did a week's worth of grocery shopping for $67 (for four!) how impressive is that?!

New Year's Resolution:

Begin Decluttering.

I'm only beginning. I am such a packrat it will probably take years for me to learn to live more simply. Freecycle has helped a bit, but my new resolve is to go further. This year I will not only not buy new stuff, I will get rid of old stuff. I'll begin, anyway.