Simple Pleasures

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Posted on June 18, 2014

I have been absent a bit recently for no reason other than the fact that I have a life to live as well as a blog to write. I am busy at work and it is a little over 7 weeks until our overseas trip and the days are filling up fast with appointments as diverse as dentist, retirement seminar, work conference, tax accountant, haircut and so on.

I am able to work away from the office some of the time and yesterday was one of those days. After spending the best part of the day at my desk, I ventured outside in the mid-afternoon. This is the peak season for the citrus that thrive in our climate.

The netted tree in the foreground is the mandarin. The birds do not touch the oranges, lemons or grapefruit but they love the mandarins. It may be because of the thinner skin but the scrub turkeys would take them all if it were not for the protection that the netting offers.

I picked some mandarins for our lunches and then took an opportunity which was too good to pass up.

I sat one the step in the winter sunshine and savoured a sweet, juicy mandarin picked straight from the tree. Delightful!

By the way, this photo was taken yesterday and it has not been edited or altered in any way. That is really what the day was like – perfect.

Patchwork – Part 2

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Posted on June 9, 2014

It is a week since my last post and I have not even replied to your kind and thoughtful comments. I think work got in the way last week. I also went to a community meeting about solar power one evening and spent time with members of my family so blogging has taken a back seat.

Today I did some more of my patchwork. I now have 22 of the 36 squares I need. I have decided that I will just join the blocks directly rather than putting sashing between them as I am looking for a random allover pattern. I spread the completed blocks out on the floor to get an idea of how it is going to look and I am very pleased with the result so far.

I also mended a pair of jeans for DD’s partner. They were brand new but the stitching had come undone for about 3cm on one side seam. I completely reinforced both side seams so hopefully they will be OK now. There was a pair of The Duke’s socks with a hole in the toe so they are now fixed too. Finally, I put my skills to the test and replaced the legs of this bear.

It was signed by DD’s friends when she finished school and we were moving interstate so it has some sentimental value for her. However, I think my granddaughters had been ‘playing’ with him and the buttons that hold his legs in place had come adrift. Luckily the thread was still through his torso so with a bit of ingenuity and a large curved needle I was able to reattach the legs. I don’t think I will repair dolls and bears for a living!

It has been a long weekend here and I have enjoyed the break from work.

My First Attempt

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Posted on June 2, 2014

It is never too late to learn something new so today I have started some patchwork. I am hoping to make a quilt. It is not entirely true that I have never done patchwork before but it has been generally on a small scale and my own ‘design’.

Following some basic tips that I gleaned from Frugal Queen and this Youtube video, I set about making my first disappearing 9 patch square.

I did not buy any fabric because I believe that patchwork should be the ultimate in making do with what you have, not an excuse to rush out and buy all of the latest mix’n’match patchwork fabrics. I am using leftovers and offcuts from many of my own sewing projects as well as some that my mother gave me recently. Some of the pieces in the bundle are over 40 years old.

Here are some of the first squares I cut out. I was starting to arrange them for the block.

I chose to use mostly blue in my first project as that is the colour that I have most in the available fabric. It is also the colour of our bedroom so the quilt will look perfect on our bed if it reaches completion.

The first nine squares sewn together.

The disappearing 9 patch depends on then cutting the block into 4 squares, rearranging them and then sewing them together. This is the result.

So far today I have made 4 of these blocks and I am really happy with how they are turning out.

I think I am hooked but there are other things I need to do today as well. I will be back tomorrow with more adventures. In the meantime, let me know if you quilt or sew. Is it for fun or frugality?

Redistribution of Resources

Recipes and Restoration

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Posted on May 27, 2014

In response to the comments from my Clean & Green post the links to recipes for both the cream cleanser and wool wash are under the tab at the top of the page marked “Recipes – Other”. Unfortunately, the wool wash one does not have any photos as they were a victim of my culling photos some time ago 😦 I do need to make some more again before long so I will take some new photos. Also, I have found that the mixture sets quite firmly so I will be experimenting to make it more like a gel or even semi-liquid. I will let you know how I go.

Since we finished restoring the silky oak dressing table we have been searching for a similar unit for The Duke’s clothes. Many that I had seen on Gumtree (online buy/sell site) did not have enough storage space. I was hoping for a silky oak piece but that was not essential.

On the weekend we bought this piece. The thing I really love are the small, deep drawers at the top. They will be perfect for separating socks and underwear.

The seller had owned it for about 20 years and never restored it. We will need to replace the bases of some of the drawers and do a bit of structural refashioning. The piece is not original as the top left-hand drawer does not match the others and the front of the unit looks as though it was once the back of a piece of furniture. Apparently it has come from Coober Pedy (an opal-mining town in the outback of South Australia) and there is clearly a lot of history so I believe it deserves to be restored. It needs a lot of work but we are confident that it will come up nicely. We intend to replace the wooden knobs with metal handles to match the dressing table.

We do not intend to embark on this project at the moment as we are trying to get things ready before we head overseas in a couple of months. So we have covered the piece with a heavy drop-sheet and left it until we have more time.

Clean & Green

10 Comments

Posted on May 21, 2014

In an online discussion group of which I am a member, the challenge this week was to make some changes in your routine to make your life a little greener. It was noted that actions that are good for the environment can also be beneficial to your purse.

When I stopped and thought about this, I realised that most of how I choose to live is a result of making the best choice I can in the prevailing circumstances. Some of these things are what I have always done and others are changes I have made but it is so long ago that I do not even consider them as particularly green.

Here are some of our household patterns.

Use locally-made, environmentally-friendly washing liquid, laundry soaker, dishwashing liquid and dishwasher powder from Kin Kin Naturals.

Make my own wool wash and cream cleanser.

Use bicarb and vinegar to clean most surfaces.

Hang clothes outdoors to dry or in front of the fire. Use clothes dryer rarely.

Run our home on tank water, grid-connected solar power and solar hot water service.

Grow some of our own fruit and vegetables. This week I have picked lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, radishes, pak choy, lemons, oranges, mandarins. grapefruit and avocadoes.

Compost all our scraps or feed them to the chickens.

Keep chickens for our own supply of eggs.

Catch public transport to work.

Complete multiple errands when making a trip in the car.

Re-use as many resources as possible.

Avoid processed foods.

Make choices when shopping to avoid packaging – buy bulk/loose goods.

Use my own bags/containers when shopping.

Heating from a slow-combustion heater fuelled by wood collected from our property.

Give away items no longer needed via Freecycle or op shop.

Buy only what we need.

Repair things that we already own.

This is not a complete list but is an indication of what we do every day to lighten our footprint on the planet.

What choices have you made that could be viewed as ‘green’?

No Celebration Today

14 Comments

Posted on May 14, 2014

NOTE: The subject matter of this post is political and includes my opinions.

Last night was Budget night here in Australia. It was the first budget delivered since the election of the new government last year. There have been so many leaks and hints over the past weeks that people may have been forgiven for thinking that they had heard it all by the time last night rolled around. How wrong we were!

The governement have been hammering the message about the dire straits of the debt and deficit in this country and how everyone has to share the pain. From my assessment of the budget there is pain, YES (lots of it)………….shared, perhaps……………..equitably shared, NO!

I wanted to write this post last night but I was simply too angry to even contemplate putting my thoughts together in a coherent manner.

I would like to point out that my anger is not about what I or my family will lose personally, both now and in the future. I am angry that the sick, disenfranchised, elderly and those least able to defend themselves have been viciously attacked whilst big business have emerged virtually unscathed.

Here is a list of some of the measures announced – it is not complete and the time frames for introduction vary. I and most others do not have all of the details but I understand enough to be very, very unhappy.

As far as I can see I can expect to pay more for fuel with the reintroduction of the fuel excise to be indexed twice-yearly. This will also affect the cost of everything, including food that is subject to transport costs. I will have to make a co-payment to visit the doctor, have a blood test or an x-ray. Prescription medicines will rise in cost. The eligibility for an aged pension will rise to 70 years.

Our income is such that we are not liable for the debt levy which is being applied to all those earning in excess of $180,000 per annum. However, we have sufficient room in our own budget to accommodate the increase in costs that I outlined in the previous paragraph. We plan to have adequate superannuation to fund our own retirement without having to work until we are eligible to access the aged pension.

So, I should be pretty happy, right? I am not because I fear for others in our society who are not so fortunate. Check out this graphic for the ‘Winner and Losers’.

Here are a few examples of some of the negative changes. There are far to many to list.

No unemployment benefits for 6 months if you are under 30
Changes from Newstart to Youth Allowance for 22 – 24 year olds
Eligibility for aged pension to increase to 70
Superannuation Guarantee Levy to be frozen at 9.5% until at least 2018
First Home Savers Account to be scrapped
Schoolkids Bonus abolished
$7 co-payment for Dr visits and also pathology and radiology
Funding slashed to CSIRO, ANTSO, ABC and SBS
Abolish PHIO (Private Health Insurance Ombudsman)
Increase in cost of prescription medications on PBS ($0.80 for concession card holders and $5.00 extra for the rest of us)
Abolish the Australian Renewable Energy Agency
Cut funding to the National Anti-Tobacco Campaign
Gonski school funding model disbanded – cuts in education funding
Allowing hospital emergency departments to bill for “GP-type” visits
Cut funding for human rights education
Higher university costs

Here are some of the beneficaries that you may not have heard about yet.

Increased funding for school chaplaincy services
A new icebreaker ship
Funds for Australian Drug Commission
Medical Research Future Fund
$1 million for accommodation for students of Australian National Ballet

A quote I found online:

“No progress on tax avoidance, no sign that Australia will responsibly lead the G20, no reform of expensive concessions to the rich: this budget is a massive moral failure”

And finally, absolutely nothing positive for the environment and the effects of a changing climate but that is hardly surprising since Mr Abbott does not believe it exists.

Fruit and Flowers

5 Comments

Posted on May 6, 2014

We planted the new blueberry bushes on Sunday.

We bought 3 each of 4 different varieties that seemed appropriate for our climate. I collected enough rocks to create a border around the new patch. At the moment there is residual grass but we are planning to mulch the entire area. We will order a load of pine mulch which is acidic and suitable for the blueberries. Underneath the mulch we will place several layers of newspaper to suppress the grass.

The passionfruit vince which we bought at the same time as the blueberries has been planted next to the chicken run so that it can grow on the fence..

Finally, I wanted to show you one of the ornamental plants in our garden. It is a gorgeous apricot hibiscus which was here when we came. The shrub is nothing to look at but the flowers are stunning. Here is one that managed to escape under the old sleeper which is placed to stop the chickens escaping under the fence. There are lots more buds on the plant and soon it will be covered with beauties like this.

We are considering planting the garden bed infront of the verandah with a selection of hibiscus shrubs. There is a display at Woombye (Sunshine Coast) on Saturday so we are hoping to go and get a few ideas.

The New Arrivals

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Posted on May 3, 2014

On Thursday evening there was a card in our mailbox advising that there was a large parcel at the Post Office for us to collect. We collected the box early on Friday morning before we went to work. It was our fruit trees that we ordered online from Daley’s Nursery. We ordered 12 blueberry bushes and a passionfruit vine.

Here is the box after I had slit one side open (as suggested in the attached instructions). The plants were well-packed and in excellent condition. Once again, we followed the directions and removed all of the wrapping and put them out in full sun.

We watered them well and have placed them in the area where they will be planted – hopefully tomorrow. It may be a bit difficult to see in the photo but I had already placed rocks to mark where we are going to plant them so it will be a relatively simple matter of digging the holes. The ground is quite soft as we have had some rain. Blueberries thrive in a slightly acidic soil. I have never actually tested the pH of our soil but the other indicator is that azaleas and camellias grow really well in our area and they like very similar conditions.

We have four other blueberry shrubs which are in the area which is now the chicken run. You can read about them in this previous post. We did not give them as much care as they probably needed but we still managed to harvest about 1.5kg of berries this summer. That was predominantly from 2 shrubs. We have now pruned them quite hard and mulched them thoroughly.

The other exciting news is that we have completely finished fencing the vegetable garden area.

As well as the completed fencing you may also be able to see the black hoops over the garden bed in the distance. This is some large poly pipe which I am planning to use as a frame for some exclusion netting to keep the white cabbage moth off the broccoli, kale, cabbages and cauliflower. I am looking at buying the vege netting from Green Harvest. We are fortunate that this business is located in Maleny so we are able to place our order online and then pick it up in person.

The chickens are rather unhappy that they are now permanently excluded from the garden area and all of the freshly dug soil and earthworms.

Weekend Work & Chicken Wings

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Posted on April 30, 2014

It is Wednesday already and it is nearly a week since my last post. I have been busy doing things instead of writing and unfortunately have not always had the camera handy. However, here are a few photos of some of the things we did on the weekend.

The existing blueberry bushes have been pruned, enclosed with wire surrounds and mulched thoroughly. These bushes have been in for several years but are now in the wrong place as they are located within the new chicken run. I previously had the entire area enclosed to prevent the chickens from digging around them and exposing the roots but I decided that individual enclosures were a better idea.

The fencing around the perimeter of the vegetable gardens is almost complete. I the meantime I have temporarily closed off the last bit to exclude the chickens. This meant that I was able to prepare a new garden bed and be safe in the knowledge that it would not be dug up immediately by the marauding feathered army. The rock edging is made from some of the hundreds of rocks that litter our property. The bed is inside the fence nearest to the house so I plan to make this into a herb garden.

Finally, I clipped the wings of the chickens in order to make sure that they could not fly over the 1200mm fence into the vegie garden. I had wanted to do this for ages but never felt quite brave enough. With some advice from an online forum, a Youtube video and The Duke to hold the chicken I was able to clip the flight feathers on one wing of each chicken. The exercise seems to have been successful as there has been no more instances of flying over fences.