This morning I picked the last of the crop of grapefruit and juiced them.
Although our vegetable gardening efforts can be a bit hit and miss, our fruit trees continue to provide with minimal effort on our part.
There are still plenty more citrus with the 2 Valencia orange trees still loaded with fruit.
I also picked another 270g of mulberries from our young tree. I now have just over 700g of mulberries in the freezer and will hopefully make some jam in due course.
On Tuesday I went to the dentist which is adjacent to my latest favourite op shop. I popped in and found a pair of fitted white stretch pull-on trousers for the princely sum of $4.
Of course, they were too long and needed taking up. The next question was what is the correct or most flattering length.
I was unsure and turned to the collective brains trust of some of my online fashionista friends. After a couple of attempts I settled on this length.
Here are the trousers hemmed, pressed and ready to wear.
Today some of my family went to the memorial gardens where our mother’s ashes were to be placed.
These are the native flowers which I took from my garden.
The arrangement is not quite up to the standard of commercial floristry but I was pretty pleased with my effort. Especially since flower-arranging is definitely not my forte.
The wrapping was some that I had squirrelled away from previously received flowers and I even managed to find a piece of matching ribbon.
Rest in peace Mum and Dad. We love you and miss you both always.
My last couple of posts have focused on avoiding packaging when grocery shopping. While avoiding packaging and waste is ideal, we still need to consider all potential waste and whether there are other options for it.
Upcycling is one of the strategies for removing items from the waste and recycling stream.
I would not buy Pancake Shaker mix but I ended up with a container of it which had come from my mother’s pantry. I decided to use it rather than waste perfectly good food but was then left with an empty plastic container.
I decided to cut it down to make a scoop.
After marking the proposed cutting line with a felt-tip pen I then carefully cut it with a Stanley knife. These are the 2 pieces I ended up with.
The offcut will go in the recycling and the scoop will be handy for GMan when measuring our flour during his breadmaking adventures.
There are many opportunities to reuse or upcycle all sorts of packaging. Do you have any examples?
Yesterday I showed you the boxes of jars to be filled with dry goods.
It took me 30 minutes at Simply Good to have these weighed and fill them.
Once I was home I could just put them in the pantry.
This is what I bought today. It is not an exhaustive list of everything I buy there, just today’s purchases.
Chia seeds
Psyllium husk
Kidney beans
Red lentils
Sunflower seeds
Pepitas
Arrowroot
Potato starch
Brown rice flour
Quinoa flour
Baking powder
Cinnamon
Turmeric
Smoky paprika
Mixed herbs
Cashews
Black beans
Coconut
One of my passions is reducing packaging. My life is far from totally zero waste but I do the best I can. That is all that any of us can do. What works for me may not be an option for you.
I buy most of my dry goods – seeds, nuts, flours, spices etc from bulk bins at Simply Good. It means that I can buy as much or as little of a product as I wish without any packaging.
The shop is about 50km from home so I do not pop in every other day. In fact, I generally shop there about 3 times/year and always combine in with a trip in the same direction (usually to Brisbane).
Tomorrow is the day as I am running low on several staples and I have a dental appointment in Brisbane. So, I have made sure the containers are clean and labelled. You can use the lightweight plastic bags provided at the shop, however, I choose to take my own bags, or better still jars.
The staff are happy to pre-weigh the jars before filling them and then the weight is deducted at the checkout. For this to work accurately the jars do need to be labelled.
When I arrive home it is a simple matter of placing the jars in their correct location in the pantry and I fully restocked until next time.
Do you try to reduce packaging? Do you have any tips or tricks for minimising packaging when grocery shopping?
Although I have maintained a reasonable but sometimes intermittent schedule of blog posts of a period of 10 years, I have neglected the Blog Roll. You can find this by scrolling a short way down on the right-hand side. It is a list of blogs that I enjoy reading and think you may do, too.
Some blogs have not been updated in a while but there is still lots of older content that is still interesting and relevant. Others are quite active with regular updates.
I have have been very slack in following/reading them so am planning to make time to reacquaint myself with them.
I will add others as I find them.
Do you have a blog that you would like me to add? Do have any blogs that you particularly enjoy? Please share in the comments.
Yesterday I popped into our local Salvos op shop (thrift shop) as I needed a long sleeve shirt. We were going on a walk in a rainforest area as part of a local Landcare group today. The dress code was long pants and long sleeve top plus closed shoes. The weather forecast was for a maximum temperature of 31C so none of my long sleeve tops were really suitable. I went to see if I could get a men’s business shirt that would do the trick but I was surprised to find this collared top with pretty pintucked detailing. The sleeves are actually 3/4 but almost wrist-length on me. My size and $5.
As an added bonus I found a scarf for $3 which goes perfectly with this jumper. I am sure I will find an opportunity to wear it before too long.
I have had several good op shop finds in the last few months including barely worn cotton shorts , canvas denim sneakers as well as a couple of tops.
Buying secondhand makes good ethical sense in my opinion but I am mindful of only buying what I need, regardless of whether it is new or secondhand.
Do you source clothes or other goods secondhand? Do you have a favourite store?
Before I begin on the actual content of today’s post, I have a bit of general news about the blog.
I have been absent for 3 weeks. Part of this was due to us being on holidays for a portion of the time but the remainder of my inactivity has been while I reassessed my general online presence. There are limited hours in the day and it is not all devoted to online activity. Therefore, I have decided to alter some of my priorities and this blog will be the main spot where you will be able to engage with me. The content will generally be shorter and more frequent – possibly daily. I look forward to your comments and interacting more fully with my readers. If you are not already following the blog, please consider doing so so that you don’t miss anything.
So, dear readers it is back to the real stuff that happens here every day.
This morning I whipped these 2 takeaway food containers from the freezer. One is vegetable curry and the other is rice. Therefore, dinner tonight is all ready to heat and eat.
My cooking style is pretty much a constant cycle of stocking up the freezer while using from it at the same time.
In that vein I have done a spot of cooking this afternoon. I always do more than one thing if I am turning the oven on.
6 gluten free pizza bases partly cooked and ready to freeze for later use.
Zucchini quiche which used the last of the packs of frozen zucchini from last summer’s harvest. I have about 3 different dishes I can use for making the quiche but this one that belonged to my mother is a new favourite.
The recipes for the pizza bases and zucchini quiche can be found checking the recipe index – click on the tab ‘Recipes – Food’ at the top of the front page of the blog.
Please share your prepared meals or glut of produce stored for future use. 🙂
This week we spent some time in the garden and on of the jobs I tackled was tidying up the entrance pergola.
The mandevilla were growing out of control and needed a bit more training up the trellis. I also trimmed some of the lower growth and swept the pavers. We cleaned up and mulched the adjacent garden area. The flowers and small shrubs will thrive as the weather begins to warm up.
It looks much better.
There are not a huge number of flowers at the moment but this shot from November last year shows it in full bloom.
In March 2018 the area was very different.
By September of 2018 things were progressing but the plants were still in their infancy.
It is always useful to look back and remind yourself of how much progress you have made.
organised castle 