Community Pantry | organised castle

I showed you a few months ago in this post that we had netted the entirety of our three espaliered fruit trees – one nectarine and two nashi pears. That decision proved to be really successfully with us not losing any fruit to the birds and other wildlife.

We have removed it gradually as the fruit ripened on each tree. First, were the nectarines, then one nashi and a couple of days ago we removed the netting completely and picked the nashi pears from the last tree.

There were well over 100 fruit.

GMan had stewed and frozen all of the fruit from the first tree and did about another 40 of these. I am now experimenting with dehydrating slices of them for snacks and have given some to the Community Pantry.

The next job was to fold the netting up and put it away for next season. We spread it out so that we could remover any leaves or debris and it noticed a jagged hole of about 8cm across in the middle of the netting. I am not sure whether it was caused by an errant branch growing through or a possum munching through it.

Anyway, I decided to mend the hole before packing the netting up. It is nothing fancy but will work well.

A few days ago I saw an ad on Facebook for a hands-on workshop on ‘Summer Fruit Tree Pruning’ in a town about 45 minutes from us. This seemed like a perfect opportunity so GMan has signed up and is going along on Friday. Hopefully, he will be able to apply his new-found knowledge to our trees.

Most of my posts seem to be fairly light on writing and tend to favour the accompanying photos. You know the saying, ‘A picture paints a thousand words………….’.

However, today is going to be somewhat the reverse of the normal pattern.

I want to share my thoughts about lists. Lists are part of who I am and I thrive on them. Shopping lists, to-do lists, packing lists, list of contents. The types of lists are almost endless. The ‘Notes’ function on my phone is my best friend. I have lists of groceries to buy, books to read, movies to watch, places to visit. Sadly, the topic does not really lend itself to lots of photos.

One of my most enduring lists is the sometimes maligned to-do list. I recently read that creating a to-do list puts you under unnecessary stress and/or sets you up for failure. This could be the case but I consider it simply as an ongoing reminder. In fact, it actually lightens my mental load since once a task is added to the list, I can easily remove it from my mind and the constant nagging feeling of remembering that I have to do something. Instead, I can simply refer to the list.

My daily ‘to-do’ list is more of a memory prompt of things that I need or want to achieve the next day. I generally write/update it before I go to bed and I can then sleep with a clear head and safe in the knowledge that I have recorded my plans (very loose) for tomorrow.

As an example, these were some of the items on my list for today.

Tidy up more emails
Send email to ………….
Book restaurant
Sweep hallway
Finish making bags
Deliver pamphlets
Walk dog
Clean shower
Quote for screens/security door

GMan did the hallway before I got to it. I have finished 3 of the bags and have 4 more to sew the straps on. I am making them for the local Community Pantry for people to use (and reuse) if they do not have a bag with them. I bought the material for $5 from the Bendigo Share and Repair Shed a few weeks ago. I do like creating bags using a variety of offcuts but a large piece of fabric certainly makes it easy to create a number of bags fairly quickly.

Everything else has been done with the exception of the shower which will go on tomorrow’s list. Of course, I did numerous other things besides what was on the list and this is usually the case most days.

I do not feel any pressure from creating a list and this method works well for me. Do lists work for you?