I know it is Earth Hour tonight and while the idea is admirable I find the execution of it irritating.  The whole idea of events where people are actually encouraged to travel to a central location, thus using more resources, seems somewhat ludicrous to me.  How many of the people who turn their lights off for an hour will give any serious thought to the need to reduce our overall carbon footprint on the planet once 9.30pm comes?  What we need is for people to be striving to reduce their reliance on finite, non-renewable resources every single day – not for 1 hour out of 8760!!

We have 20 solar panels (3.7kW system).  This generates more than what we use so it is a bonus both environmentally and financially.  Nevertheless, I am always careful with our use of power and one thing I routinely do is cook more than one item when I have the oven turned on.  This is nothing new as I remember it being standard practice for both my mother and grandmother.  Tonight I made apple crumble for dessert so I took the opportunity to roast some garlic ready to make Crockpot Refried Beans.  You can find the recipe here.

I have finished the patchwork for the doona cover for Miss O.

Now I need to make the actual cover using the plain pink sheeting I bought at Spotlight.  When I have made doona covers previously I have used velcro tabs to close the open end but I have not been entirely happy with the long-term performance so this time I am going to do buttons and buttonholes.  I bought 2 different lots of 4 buttons from the local Lifeline shop for 40c (for a total of 8 buttons).   I will need to finish and reinforce the bottom edge before attaching the buttons and making the buttonholes.

The next project will be the curtains – no, they are not going to be patchwork!  They will be made from the plain, dark pink fabric in the cover with a strip of ‘Dora’ fabric near the bottom edge.

I will post more photos once it is all done and in the bedroom ready for use.

In the first days of this blog I posted a link on ‘How to Fold a Plastic Bag’ Here it is again for anyone who missed it.  This really captured my interest. I have two bags hanging inside my laundry cupboard where I store reused bags which I use constantly but I had another lot in the cupboard in the spare room which needed a better way of storing them.

I decided to try my new-found skill on this lot.

All folded on the bench – now for how to store them.

The only thing left to do is to put the box back in the cupboard.

I seem to be fighting a losing battle despite my best efforts to minimise the amount of clutter, especially paper, that makes its way into our home.

I started by cleaning out my purse and handbag while making my way home from work on the train.  I sorted the recycling and rubbish into 2 piles to dispose of when I got home.  One thing led to another and after dinner I continued on my mission by sorting out the interminable piles of stuff that had appeared in the corner of my bedroom.  It was not all paper but most was and it is now all filed, shredded or recycled.  I have a pile of jobs to do tomorrow including going to Medicare, having a blood test, and making phone calls.  I have also cleared the desk of the loose papers as well as some that were on the kitchen bench.

While I was in the study I even managed to find a couple of things that are no longer required and have added them to the bag of goodies destined for the op shop.

Keeping a lid on the spending can sometimes be difficult without a specific, short-term goal.  Things like paying more off the mortgage, whilst admirable, tend to be somewhat nebulous.  However, we are heading off on holidays at the end off April for 2 weeks and we will be spending a few days in the Flinders Ranges and have the opportunity to take a flight over Lake Eyre while it is in flood.  This is a relatively rare occurrence and we are keen to do it so we are trying hard to save our pennies.

Things we are doing include taking our lunches to work each day, buying only the groceries we need, thinking about the fuel usage and trying to minimise trips by combining activities as well as numerous other things.  Some are quite simple like the load of washing I have just put on.  I am doing most of the washing in the evenings as since we have the solar panels and a net feed-in tariff we aim to minimise our power usage during the day so that we can feed the maximum amount of power to the grid and draw it back at night as needed.  This results in a financial benefit as it is about 30c/kWh difference between the payment for power fed to the grid as opposed to that used from the grid.  Growing some of our own food (bok choy, lettuce and basil are being harvested at the moment) and not wasting any food are other important ways to save.

As I mentioned yesterday it can be the little things that make a difference.  Sometimes we all get so caught up in the need to declutter things and organise our ‘stuff’ that we lose sight of why we are doing this.  A perfect example is this little plastic box.

It is a tablet dispenser for morning and evening medications for 7 days.  People generally think of these as being for the elderly, however, I would not be without it.  Obviously, if you have children around it would need to be securely stored as it is definitely NOT childproof.  I refill it on the weekend and it means that during the week I can see at glance whether or not I have taken my tablets for that particular morning or evening.  It is also a great timesaver instead of having to open these bottles and foil sheets twice every day.

We accumulated numerous things from my parents’ home before it was sold late last year.  It had been the family home for over 50 years so there was a lot of stuff to distribute.  This had been an ongoing project for my mother since my father’s death almost 10 years ago.  The pace cranked up a notch in the latter part of last year as the impending sale loomed large.  Downsizing to a 1 bedroom unit meant that my mother would only keep a relatively small quantity of her personal possessions and mostly replace the furniture as things like a large family dining suite were simply not appropriate for your new circumstances.  Hiring a skip and dumping everything was never an option as my parents, who were both young children during the Great Depression of the 1930’s had taken great care of their possessions and my mother wanted to ensure that as much as possible went to ‘good homes’.

We used many methods such as garage sales, Freecycle, Weekend Shopper, talking to friends who might need particular items and of course, the family.  One of the many things we brought home was a small shelf which my father had made.  I felt that it would be useful – somewhere, sometime………..  Sure enough, while we were tidying up the workshop a couple of weeks ago we decided to mount it on the wall as it was a perfect spot for the old CD/radio that The Duke  keeps in the workshop for his entertainment.  It is only a minor issue in the scheme of things but all of those little bits add up.  Here it is.

Today we went to Brisbane for the day.  The Duke mowed Belle’s yard and although there was a bit of light drizzle, he finished it before the rain really set in. We visited my mother and had lunch.  Belle, Miss O and Izz came, too.  Later we called in to see Missy and I have come home with a dress of hers which needs some minor alterations.

I doubt that there has been much solar generation today as there has been a thick blanket of cloud and steady rain since mid-morning.  The tanks will be overflowing, again.

The only organising I did today was at Belle’s place.  I helped her to sort out her fridge and freezer and plan some meals from various leftovers in the fridge.  I need to do the same in our own fridge tomorrow.

There are many ways that we can make the life we lead more sustainable by reducing our carbon footprint.  Some are little things like remembering to take our own bags to the shops and looking for alternatives to over-packaged goods.  These are the ongoing, day-in, day-out kind of things but today I want to tell you about our ‘big’ items.

We have what I think of as ‘the big three’.  They are rainwater tanks, solar panels and solar hot water.  They are my ‘silent giants’ because they keep on doing what they do every day with minimal input from me.

When we moved to our current property there was a 10,000 gallon concrete tank which was the only water supply as we are in a rural area and not connected to the town supply.  Since then we have added another 10,500 gallon tank which brings our total capacity to 20,500 gallons (a little over 90,000 litres).  We live in a high rainfall area (72 inches/1800mm average per year) and the tanks are almost always full (or overflowing).

Our solar hotwater system was one of the first improvements we made to the property when we purchased it a little over 5 years ago.  We had systems in 2 of our previous homes and were delighted to discover that the group, Sustainable Maleny was looking to organise a bulk purchase.  We joined this venture and are very happy with the system we chose.  We have an electric booster with a manual switch and only turn it on when really necessary.  This made a big reduction in both our electricity bill and our carbon emissions.

We decided last year to take the final step and get a grid-connected system of solar PV panels.  There was a Sustainable Expo at the University of the Sunshine Coast for World Environment where we found a display by Auzion.  We chose a 3.7kW system which we estimate will cover all our electricity needs plus a significant return each year which will see it pay for itself in about 5 years quite apart from the $0 bills.  The system was finally installed in November and connected to the grid a few weeks later.  I love seeing the numbers mount up on the display on the inverter but I have yet to really master calculating the generation vs. usage.

In these days of concern about climate change, drought and rising electricity prices it is a real delight to stand under a hot shower, secure in the knowledge that I am not contributing a single drop of carbon to the atmosphere.  How cool is that?

We set out for Maleny this morning with a long ‘To Do’ list.  We achieved a lot.

Dr appointment for The Duke

Physio appointment for me

4 bags of stuff to the op shop (most of it from Belle)

2 posters (belonging to Missy) to the gallery for framing

Psycho Dog’s vaccination certificate collected from the vet

Meat bought from the butcher

Tyre dropped off to be repaired

Parcel collected and pre-paid stachel bought from the post office

We then headed in the other direction to Caloundra to Aldi and did our grocery shopping.  I am looking forward to the new Aldi store opening in Beerwah in the next few months.  This afternoon we went back to Maleny to collect the spare tyre and also went to the credit union to change some account details.

The parcel we collected was our new mobile broadband USB stick which means I will be able to do stuff on the internet during the 70 minute train trip each way to work and back every day.  It will also be useful for when we are away on holidays.

Since I have now found out what the problem with my shoulder/arm is I need to limit my movement of it to allow it to heal.  Sadly, The Duke will be the one hanging out the washing (and some other jobs) in the coming weeks.

Since the byline for this blog is ‘organised, sustainable’ I will focus on some of the sustainable aspects of our life in coming posts.  Also, please feel free to let me know if there are particular things you would like me to focus on.