narrating kayoz

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.

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*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.

Chook pics

Here's one of the Fluffies (they still don't have individual names, but I'm working on it) standing in front of the scarecrow we made last year when we got sick of sharing eggs with the ravens.

She's a white silky, somewhere around 11-13 weeks old.

Here's one of Speckles, who in retrospect looks more red than buff - maybe she's half red Columbian Wyandotte (and half black Australorp)? I don't know...

Snug inside their straw bale house with one of the Fluffies, after being out in the rain. Silkies really do the bedraggled look well, don't you think?

Yet More Link Love: Freecycle

I think I've been meaning to blog about the wonderful thing that is Freecycle for a couple of years now and I think haven't done it, so instead, since I am clearly in a link love sort of mood (while what I should be doing is concentrating all about motherhood, maternity, in/fertility and whatnot, or at the very least playing scrabulous), I give you Freecycle. (If you don't live in Canberra you will have to search yahoo for Freecycle in your part of the world, but there probably is one.)

This is one thing that has helped me, a very little bit, to let go of my attachment to material things. I've given some really good stuff away on Freecycle (really good stuff that we had never used, but who knows? Some day we might!), and I've also received a few useful pieces.

More Link Love*: A slow year

Riana on not shopping any more:

One thing is for sure, anyone can do this. If I: a total shopping whore who drove an SUV, worked in a business that involved shipping alcohol containers into the states on major polluting cargo ships (2000 times more polluting than a big diesel truck), flew to Europe and beyond ten or more times a year- hell, I flew to Paris for the weekend from the West Coast to see my boyfriend (now my husband), then so can you.

More at These Days in French Life.

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*I think I stole this term (link love) from Trish.

Link Love: more, better, newer

It will help you a lot if you get rid of the nagging need for more, better and new. This need has been created in all of us by advertising and seeing what new things our friends and neighbours have. If you can convince yourself that you really will live well and be happier living a simpler life, then also convince yourself that having more, better and new will highjack any attempt to make your life simpler. You have to redefine for yourself what success is for you. In the past it might have been an overseas holiday every year or good clothes, now it might [be] having no debt or baking bread your friends and family say is the best they've ever eaten. You can replace energy sapping activities with life affirming ones. It just takes work and time.

More at down-to-earth: Starting your simple life.

More on that sustainable, ethical living theme

After the post I wrote a week or two ago about sustainable living, I started to think - maybe we should start doing the 'no new purchases' thing - where you don't buy anything new except groceries and underwear. Anything else you need you have to find second hand. We could do it for six months and see how we go.

The next day I checked my credit card balance, for some reason, and it was more than $3000 higher than I expected - turns out where I thought I'd paid last month's horrific balance, apparently I hadn't (probably I paid online and walked away from the computer before it got to the 'confirm' screen). So our bank balance was suddenly a lot sadder than I thought, and not getting any better, what with me not earning any money until July.

So, we are now on a real spending freeze. The deal is that at least until July we buy nothing new except groceries, underwear (only if we really need it) and shoes (again, only if we really need them, but both being trained in the bodywork industry, we both feel the importance of wearing shoes that aren't too unevenly worn - which means Liam gets bought new shoes when he outgrows the last ones and I get mine resoled over and over until they simply can't be worn any more). Also, we're not allowed to buy anything second hand unless we both agree that we really need it or we buy it out of our own spending money (and $20/week doesn't go very far). Because this is not just about sustainable consumption any more, it's also about sustaining our bank balance. Also we're cutting back significantly on grocery money, plus not buying any more cling wrap!

So there it is.

And on the topic of sustainable consumption here's Jackie French:

I’m a bit suspicious of a lot of so called ‘green tips’. Badly made backyard compost can lead to global warming methane and cockroaches (The methane is the global warming culprit, not the cockroaches). And sometimes keeping your old stuff is a heck of a lot more earth friendly than buying new ‘green’ versions of cars or clothes.

A lot of ‘ green tips’ remind me a bit of a girl I knew back in the 1960’s. She decided not to eat any more chocolate till the Vietnam War ended.

It didn’t make any difference to the war of course. But she felt nice and virtuous because she was giving something up. Which is what most ‘green tips’; are meant to do- to make us feel virtuous about doing small things for the planet- recycling paper, or not having a good long fragrant soak- while we still roam the world for holidays and consume more household ‘goods’ (or bads, or just plain sillies).

"The journey to live a simpler...more sustainable existence"

In searching for information on golden nugget pumpkins* this morning I came across two interesting sites. One is the blog of a woman who describes it as a "diary of her home and family on a journey to live a simpler, more thoughtful and more sustainable existence". It's called The Tin House. The second was a SMH article by Jackie French called "Self Sufficiency on a Balcony" (though she covers a back yard as well).

I haven't finished reading either of them (not that you ever really finish reading a blog, but I've really only skimmed a few posts so far), but the idea, particularly of the blog, got me thinking. Maybe I should do a similar thing here. Not that I don't still use this blog as a baby book, memory dump, soap box, etc, but maybe I should also use it to document our efforts to move towards a more sustainable, ethical life.

Because documenting things can often be enough to motivate one to do them better. It works for me anyway (that's how I've lost 12+ kilos in the past seven months, bringing back to my several-years-pre-pregnancy weight).

The thing is, as soon as I came up with the idea I started getting cold feet. Why? Because of all the things we could be doing but aren't, or are doing but could be doing more or better. It's frankly embarrassing.

Things we are doing to some people seem great, to others seem token. Things we aren't doing to some people seem over the top and to others seem essential.

For instance, we decided to buy a freezer last year, so we could buy in bulk and cook in bulk and have somewhere to put it all. But we spent many months over the project because we wanted to buy a second hand one, for environmental as well as economic reasons, and we didn't want it to be too old or the lack of energy efficiency would make the whole exercise a little pointless (we figured). So that's good right? We're trying to teach Liam that to reduce or reuse is better than to recycle. But in the past year we also bought (new) an iPod dock, various picture frames, large plastic boxes (for storing hand-me-down clothes till the kids grow into them), a plastic drawers thingy for storing stationary, a plastic water jug, a toy pram for Mikaela, a baby monitor and no doubt a thousand other little things that I don't happen to be able to see from where I'm sitting. Oh, and this laptop upon which I am typing.

Whereas my sister and her husband made a pact at the beginning of last year to buy nothing new but groceries and underwear. I don't know for sure how well they've done, but I know they are still doing it.

Does that mean they don't buy cling wrap? I don't know, but I know we do - I try to minimise it's use (eg using containers with lids to store things in the fridge), but I suppose if I were trying sufficiently hard we wouldn't need to buy it any more.

Also we've changed most of our lightglobes over to the long life fluro ones, we've got water saver shower heads, and small tanks on each down pipe (and a big one to feed water into the toilets and laundry is in the pipeline), which this year are supplying most of the water for our garden. But we also have an evaporative cooler which we use frequently in the summer. And three computers! (One is pretty old, and one is not very new and was bought for us by Chris's dad, but still.)

And we buy some organic produce, but lots of not organic (and some imported), simply because of the money. But of course if we didn't buy laptops and iPod docks maybe we could afford more organic produce. Then again we are doing out best to grow our own. And our chickens are supplying us with all our eggs, but of course, their food isn't all organic either.

 

See what I'm saying? To document our journey towards a more sustainable existence I have to admit to where we are on that journey now.

Anyway, The Tin House has a list of blogs she likes to read with titles like 'Aussies Living Simply' and 'Down to Earth', so I'm off to browse the web for more inspiration.

 

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*Because the zucchini plants we bought from Liam's school fair turned out to be some kind of pumpkin - I *think* golden nuggets, or maybe minikins - and I am trying to figure out how to tell, and also how to tell when they're ready to pick.