Ashes to Ashes, Branches to Mulch

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Posted on April 6, 2014

We collect all of the fallen branches on our land for firewood, so today The Duke spent some time cutting up some more logs that were stacked and waiting to be cut.

Here are some of them cut and waiting to be stacked in the woodshed.

The mulcher which you can also see in the photograph also got a workout as we mulched several piles of smaller branches as well as some palm fronds and rotting branches. As always, nothing is wasted so some of the mulch was added to one of the raised garden beds that we are filling and the rest will be spread under the native shrubs which are planted along part of the front boundary. The mulch keeps the weeds mostly under control.

Next, we headed over to the area near the vegetable gardens. There was more debris to mulch, including the remnants of the corn stalks.

While the Duke and Psycho Dog were hard at work, I turned my attention to the new garden bed I built yesterday. I needed a bit more mulch and soil to fill it up and then I planted some Purple King climbing beans and radishes.

It is along the outside of the chicken run so the fence will provide an excellent trellis for the beans. I grew these beans a few months ago and had an absolutely fantastic crop so decided to grow them again. I added a couple of star pickets and some wire to enclose the bed so that the chickens cannot dig it up when they are free-ranging. I was just putting the finishing touches to the wire surround as the first drops of rain fell late this afternoon. We had a tremendous thunderstorm with some huge bolts of lightening very close by but were lucky not to lose power.

Finally, just to prove that our garden is decorative as well as functional, here is a photo of the roses flowering in the front garden.

Tonight I am going to make some decisions about my 33 items for the round of Project 333 which began on April 1st. I have kept track of what I have worn so far this month and will include them in the tally. I hope to share the details of my choices with you tomorrow.

More Mending

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Posted on April 5, 2014

Mending is to sewing like using leftovers is to baking.

Most people can bake or create a meal by following a recipe but often you need to have a good understanding of the underlying principles of cooking and meal preparation to be able to creatively and effectively use leftovers or random ingredients. The same applies to sewing. It is one thing to follow the instructions on a pattern to make an item but sometimes you need to use your understanding of some of the methods to apply it to mending tasks.

Today I was confronted with a pair of The Duke’s business trousers that had worn through right on the crease of the hem. I do not know how this happened as the trousers are the correct length and do not drag on the ground. It is difficult to see but the area just to the right of my thumb is a split. It is more obvious in the following photograph.

I unpicked a section of the hem.

The damage is clearly evident. I trimmed the couple of loose threads. I placed a piece of iron-on interfacing over the split on the wrong side. I made sure that the two edges of the split were closely aligned and then ironed the interfacing to seal it. With the sewing machine set on a short zigzag stitch, I stitched over the split.

This is the wrong side after I had stitched it.

Then it was a simple matter of rehemming the section of the hem which had been unpicked. I have not posted the ‘after’ photo as the mend is virtually invisible.

Do you mend clothes? If you have any mending questions please ask and I will see if I can help.

Foodie Friday – Fit for the County Fair?

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Posted on April 4, 2014

Just a reminder that real food comes from real dirt. We never actually set out to grow pumpkins – they come up self-sown in the compost and some are more successful than others. This is by far the largest I have ever grown. I picked it today and it weighs 8.7 kg or 19.2 pounds.

I placed a 2 litre ice-cream container beside it in the photo for comparison. This will make a lot of pumpkin soup!

Project 333 – An Anniversary

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Posted on April 2, 2014

It is two years since I started my first Project 333. You can read about it here. After the the first couple of 3 month periods I decided to take a slightly different approach and work towards having a streamlined wardrobe which covered all seasons.

I think I have been fairly successful in that goal so perhaps it is time to try Project 333 again.

I have not actually set aside 33 items yet so I am going to keep track of what I use until I can work out my 33 items.

2 days into April and so far I have worn 1 pair of shoes, 1 shirt, 1 pair of earrings, 1 pair of trousers and 1 pair of shorts.

Shoes – pewter flats
Shirt – 3/4 sleeve blue and white stripe
Earrings – white pearl studs
Shorts – khaki
Trousers – black cropped pants

This is what I wore to work yesterday. Today I was at home and a friend came for lunch and I also had visitors for afternoon tea. I teamed the same shirt and shoes with a pair of knee-length shorts.

Have you ever participated in Project 333? Has it changed how you view your clothes?

Cable Chaos – A Solution

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Posted on March 31, 2014

Some of you will remember my earlier post about the mess of some the cables here and the follow-up post.

I finally got around to testing out my design using some plywood and a jigsaw.

I also used a wooden presentation box from a premium bottle of wine that has been drunk and enjoyed some time ago. Once the plywood pieces were slotted together and inserted in the box it looked like this.

It is not fastened in any way but is totally self-supporting.

Here is the result with the cables separated into their own spaces. There are a couple of double-ups but they are the same or similar cables. It definitely makes locating the correct cable much easier.

I am thinking of making labels to go on the edges to identify exactly where each cable belongs.

The other good thing about this system is that it imposes limits. I will need to regularly review what cables we have and whether they are still required as I would not be keen on having a larger storage box.

What do you think?

Foodie Friday – Pantry Storage

8 Comments

Posted on March 28, 2014

Firstly, I apologise for the lack of posts this week. I have been busy with other things and have just not found the time to get my head together to write anything useful. I am also behind in responding to your comments but am about to rectify that once I finish this post. I will be busy this weekend but hopefully things will get back on track from Monday. I hope you have a great weekend.

I cook most of our food from scratch, so naturally I keep a store of the ingredients I use regularly. I do not store tonnes of food in case of an apocalyptic event, however, we do have enough so that I only shop for dry goods about every 3 – 4 months. I never run out of everything and I never feel the need to race off to the shops at the first hint of a severe weather event such as a cyclone or possible flooding. These are the 2 most likely scenarios where we live.

We eat a gluten-free diet so I have gradually eliminated all wheat-based products from the pantry.

Gluten-free muesli (homemade)

Rainsins
Sultanas
Currants
Dried apricots

Walnuts
Almonds
Cashews

Pumpkin seeds
Sunflower seeds
Sesame seeds
Chia seeds

Almond meal
Flaxseed meal
Psyllium husk
Sago
Quinoa flakes

Gluten-free flour (homemade)

Brown rice flour
Potato flour
Chickpea (besan) flour
Quinoa flour
Arrowroot

Kidney beans
Haricot beans
Red lentils
Brown lentils
Chickpeas

Arborio rice
Brown rice

Apple cider vinegar
White vinegar
Red wine vinegar
Balsamic vinegar

Tomato sauce (home-made)
Worcestershire sauce (home-made)
Tamari
Caramelised balsamic vinegar

Avocado oil
Coconut oil
Olive oil

Allspice
Chilli
Cinnamon
Coriander
Cumin
Curry powder
Ginger
Mixed spice
Paprika
Smoked paprika
Taco mix
Tumeric
Yellow mustard seeds

Beef stock powder
Vegie stock powder

Black pepper (peppercorns)
Cooking salt
Herb salt
Sea salt

Raw sugar
Brown sugar
Honey
Golden syrup
Treacle

Cocoa
Coconut

Skim milk powder

Baking powder
Bicarb soda

Black tea
Earl Grey tea
Coffee

Rice cakes
Rice crackers

Canned tuna
Canned tomatoes

Most of the dry goods are bought from bulk containers so I store them in glass or plastic jars in the pantry. I have some 10 litre plastic buckets which I keep excess of some items in. These are in a separate store cupboard.

I may have missed a couple of things but that is basically what we keep. Some of the items are left from before we changed our diets so are unlikely to be replaced. How does my list compare to what you have? Any thoughts, suggestions or questions?

Enjoy the Experience

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Posted on March 24, 2014

I have written before about the benefits of experiences versus stuff, particularly in relation to children’s gifts.

On the weekend I bought tickets to a show. It is a musical called ‘Pete the Sheep’ and is based on a book of the same name by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley.

It is being staged at a local venue at the end of April and is suitable for 4 – 9 year olds so I decided that this would be a perfect Easter ‘gift’ for our 2 granddaughters. I do not think an overdose of chocolate is necessary nor over-the-top presents so this seemed like a perfect opportunity. I am sure they will remember an evening of musical theatre long after the chocolate wrappers are in the rubbish.

It was not all about the grandchildren, though. On Saturday afternoon, The Duke and I had an opportunity to see a screening of ‘Philomena’ by the Maleny Film Society. Enjoyable is not a word I would use, however, it was challenging and thought-provoking. It was perhaps not Judi Dench’s greatest role but I am glad I saw the film. We took the opportunity to become members of the society and look forward to seeing many more of the really interesting films that they bring to our community.

I have saved the best, or most exciting, till last. We have booked our tickets to see ‘Les Miserables’ at Queen’s Theatre in London when we are there in August. For years, The Duke has always said that he wanted to see Agatha Christie’s play, ‘The Moustrap’ if we ever went to London. A couple of years ago it was staged here in Brisbane and naturally we went to see it. So, he is now feeling a bit like ‘been there, done that’ about it. We trawled the internet to see what else was going to be on while we were in London and the standout for us was ‘Les Miserables’. We saw the Australian production back in the early 1990’s in Adelaide and of course, the recent movie with Russell Crowe’s cringeworthy performance. I love the story and the music and am really excited to be seeing it again.

Plastic Bags – A Curse

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Posted on March 22, 2014

A couple of days ago I read this post from Joanna over at Every Week is Green where she discussed being ‘forced’ to accept a plastic carry bag from a retailer. I have had a similar experience, albeit, close to 20 years ago. Refusing plastic bags at the time was far less prevalent than it is today so I regularly was confronted by some very odd responses.
On the particular occasion in question, I was in a department store in Adelaide where I intended to buy a pair of socks for The Duke. I approached the counter and as I handed over the socks, I advised the assistant that I did not wish to have a bag. Then ensued one of the most bizarre ‘arguments’ I have ever had the misfortune to be involved in. She was adamant that I had to take a bag and I was equally determined that I would not accept one. Her reasons were quite ridiculous but she finally became exasperated and asked, “Well, how will people know that you bought the item at *******?” Seriously, I had to accept a bag so that the store could advertise that I shopped there? I was not about to back down and advised that I would not accept a bag or I would not buy the socks. I finally paid for the socks and left with them and the docket in my hand.

It was then and there that I realised just what hard work it was to stick to my principles. I have continued to do so and it has become easier, however,you need to be constantly on your guard to avoid plastic bags sneaking into your life.

Don’t give up, Joanna.

Finally, here is my hessian bag that I finished relining.

You can read about the beginning of the project here. It is towards the bottom of the post. I did try handsewing the lining in but it was too difficult so this morning I used some heavy linen thread and sewed it on the machine using the heaviest needle I had. The stitching is clearly visible but I am not concerned as I now have a functional bag again. Thanks, Carol for the lining fabric. 🙂

Foodie Friday – No Recipe Needed

Convenience – Is It Worth It?

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Posted on March 19, 2014

It is the middle of the working week and I have been busy at work. I manage to prepare and eat meals but nothing much else is happening.

I thought I would share this little gem that I stumbled upon yesterday. The first sentence says it all.

Convenience is my drug. It is addictive, drains the life out of me and costs a Sultan-sized fortune.

Take a read and let me know what you think. This is a fairly extreme example in my opinion but we all fall for some level of convenience at times. I am doing my best to move away from convenience and outsourcing my life to others. My goal is to live a simple life and take responsibility for myself and my needs.