The next blog

So as 2014 starts I am officially ending this blog and starting a new journey and new blog on my year's quest to reduce the plastic from our home's waste.  If you fancy joining me, you can read all about it here: http://reducingplastic.blogspot.co.uk/

Happy New Year. Enjoy the journey and live life to the full, the way it is intended.

Clare

The Herbs Progress!

This morning I spent a couple of child-free hours in the garden...amazing what can be achieved without little ones wanting to help!

The bokashi compost was put to good use for the first time (quite an aroma, but full of worms, so hope it works).  Some herbs potted up and put in the front yard, and seeds planted for more herbs to emerge shortly.

Last week the kids and I also planted some sunflower seeds for 'International Sunflower Guerilla Gardening Day' on the 1st May, and plan to plant and nurture them in the local park and around the new tree that's been planted on our street corner.  The packaging from the easter eggs earlier this month has made great little incubators, and within a week we've got new growth...I'm as excited as the kids!!

A use for Easter Egg packaging!

Topsy Turvy Easter

So the weather got it all wrong this year...we had glorious sunshine on Friday and enjoyed sitting at the Hot Walls, and then had a slightly damp breakfast at the Beach Hut on Easter Sunday.  But it's been another good Easter weekend, and as ever started with a great veggie meal with the justice gang on Thursday evening.  Leaving that evening, via the quiet room with candles, thorns, nails, wood, a hammer etc, jogs the mind to think on what Jesus must have gone through that night before it all kicked off.  (And birth experiences have definitely helped bring something more to the empathy; facing something that you know has to happen, and can't avoid, the rest of the world being asleep etc.)

Sadly a little one year old's lack of sleep (think probably relating to first year jabs...all three in one sitting!), led to being very tired at 8am on the beach on Sunday, but it was great, as ever, to celebrate the world changing, and Jesus coming back to life.  It's been a great weekend of spending time with our Portsmouth family.

Start of Spring

It's been a while since my last post, and I'm not sure why that is; partly I haven't managed many free moments, and partly I'm not sure there's anything new to write about.  

Life ticks along, but some progress has gone on in the garden, thanks to some beautiful March weather.  The shed is in situ.  Lots of little seeds have been planted...am not filled with confidence that they'll be a giant harvest, but my little helper more than makes up for my fears...hope she's not too disappointed.

Work juggling, with poorly little people, household tasks, play groups and weekends with visitors has made life feel very full.  Lots of lovely moments hidden amidst lots of routine.

Recycling continues, but I need to work on the compost bin in the back yard.  It's a very enclosed space (even more so with the new shed now), and on warmer days, the aroma is a bit strong...reminds me a micro brewery!  I've found out that Lush recycle all plastic bottle tops, and we're now a disposable nappy free house (good, other than there's no room for error on the supply of clean terries!).

Gift making continues, with recently some Piccalli (a first) and more home-made cards.  I'm now trying to get a month ahead, as otherwise I'm feeling rather too much last minute pressure to create, but it's easier said than done.

Tiredness is definitely having an impact on the spring in my step (and it is a rainy morning as I type), but as with all journeys, the honeymoon period is over, and effort is now required to find deeper richness.

January Review

image from http://www.edupics.com.html

Firstly, I can't believe that January is almost over already, and for me that means heading back to work, but I thought it would be good to try and take stock of positives this month, and what I need to think more about for the coming months.

Overall the month feels like a bit of a fail, as there have been some mammoth expenses going out (although it's not really the amount, it's whether there's an alternative solution), however, perhaps I'm being a bit tough of myself when I actually look at what they are :

• a fairly large tax bill (part tax return and part NI missed payments from several years ago when I as setting up a business and not earning...was it worth filling the gap?  Will we ever have any government pension to mention? I really struggle with pensions as they really clash with the feeling of living with God in today, in faith...more pondering required!)  p.s. I don't have any issue with the tax paying...only on what my taxes are spent on!
• the car's MOT (it actually did very well, but still costs so much, for something that we don't actually use that much.  We've considered going car-less when it dies, but when we looked into the cost of hiring a car, or getting the train to visit relatives for a week or so in the summer, unbelievably it costs more than us having the car serviced, taxed & MOT'd for the whole year!!  And we can't quite manage Preston on the bicycles!)
• repairs on the house (the garden fence panels almost blew down in the recent gales, so needed sorting - the one positive, is that with some persuasion the guy fixing them managed to revamp them, rather than scrap them and just give us new ones, pretty much the same cost, and there was really nothing wrong with 95% of them!  A leaky roof and gutter that meant our front yard flooded in giant rain.  Both things that pre-kids I've have had a go at doing myself, but currently I only seem to manage to keep on top of the things in the house, I knew that realistically it would be months before I'd get round to sorting, and who knows what the winter water would have done in that time!)

And going into next month we have two outstanding possible expenses that are playing on my mind:

• we have a digibox thing which means we can record TV programmes, and the reality of life is that we never watch anything live anymore (other than kids TV).  The harddrive is going, and I know we'll end up getting a new one, but I do feel annoyed that we're all so desiring of TV (especially when you consider the quality of most of it).  Especially in the winter months, we use it to switch off, to iron in front of, and we love things likes Sherlock.  But really, is it the best use of hundred quid?
• and finally the nightmare of our small backyard!  It's the biggest challenge on the multi-use front ever: kids play/bike storage/clothes drying/food growing.  And the bike cover is on it's last legs, and with M about to get a little bike too, we just need more storage space.  So do we get a wooden shed?  If so, the only logical place to put it, is in the only good bit of sun space in the garden, where I was about to get lots of growing going!  Ahhhhhhhhhhh...............or do we just stick to plastic covers for the meantime, but end up replacing them frequently?  Just can't decide.  (Was hoping either a shed or bike cover would come our way and the decision could be made...but no sign so far.  And the four uses are good things...not making the decision any easier.)  Am I just overtired and thinking too much ;-)

On the positive front, January has been great in some little ways:

• waste is down to a minimum....once we eliminate disposible nappies at night next month, we'll be producing less than a kilo of non-recyclable waste each week (the small black bag looks ridiculous when I put it out...hooray!!!)
• all birthday cards this month have been recycled, and 90% of the gifts too
• we haven't thrown any food away
• the chores list has worked really well (for me at least)
• and I've made marmalade for the first time.

So let's see what February brings!

Waste Challenge - Results Unveiled!

Drum roll please.....

....and the results of the first week of the bokashi existing in our waste challenge are...

Pre-Bokashi

23rd Nov    10kg

30th Nov     8.5kg (of which 4kg was disposable night nappies!)

7th Dec       7kg

(there was a bit of a gap of weighing in the middle of December, due to being away and the general madness of the Christmas week)

With Bokashi

4th Jan         6.5kg (of which 4kg was disposable night nappies)

To have a clearer picture we'll obviously need a few more weeks of results, and equally should probably have had more 'pre-bokashi' weeks when we weren't changing other habits.

But the really interesting thing has been generally thinking more about where the things we'd normally pop in the general waste bin could go to.  So here are where lots of bits are now going, and I'm hoping we'll get even lighter general waste going forward!

How we 'recycle'

• paper, tin, plastic bottles - the recycle bin
• glass - the glass bank
• shredded paper - the compost
• egg cartons - the compost or junk modelling
• plastic trays, yoghurt pots etc - nursery for junk modelling
• foil - a local church that collects (via a friend who does a trip there every so often)
• milk bottle lids - the office to a charity that collects them
• broken or unused 'things' - freegle, charity shops (and if that fails, the general waste)
• fabric/shoes - clothes/fabric bank, if no good for friends or charity shops.

Things that we haven't found a way to recycle (yet!)

Lurking at the back of the cleaning cupboard!

• tissues (we seem to have a lot of these with four snotty winter noses in the house)
• plastic wrappers that annoyingly covers most food from supermarkets! (a bit reason for getting fruit & veg boxes delievered each week is that everything is loose in a box that you return or can recycle)
• disposable nappies (although I'm considering trying both kids in the daytime terry nappies for a few nights - the reason we'd changed previously is that the wet when they are little can get them to wake more frequently, but would like to see if that's the reality now they're a bit older)
• chemicals/cleaning products that we don't want (I recently cleared out the cleaning cupboard (with some irony - see the photo!), and some things we've been given randomly over the years, haven't used, but wanted rid of...I tried freegling some, but to no avail...so sadly ended up in the bin).
• oil/fat (at the council recycle centre they now have an oil bank, however, a) I have to drive to the other end of the island to get to it b) we don't collect very much and it went really mouldy in the jar c) the bank was locked shut when I get there, so they said just to leave it on the floor next to it...did it ever make it into the bin, or just into the general household skips?)

So we're going to keep at it, and I am going to look into whether the council pays a tax on the weight of waste that is disposed, as on the basis that our small kitchen compost caddy is definitely heavier each week than our whole kitchen general waste bin, there may be a cost saving argument for introducing food waste collecting (plenty of other areas do it).  Although looking at the number of black bin bags that our neighbours put out each week, the habit shift required to make it viable would be enormous (not a reason not to do it, if it's the right thing though!).

A Year of Unravelling Jumpers?

So as the official start of our year begins tomorrow, I've been thinking about how I'm going to have to be far more creative than I've been during our warm-up of the past couple of months.

This week I've started knitting a hoodie for the kids again (there was a long pause after K was born), and it's reminded me how much I love knitting and how that is another avenue for making gifts and getting clothing etc.  However, for anyone who's bought wool in the last few years, it is a very expensive option, in comparison to buying anything in the shops.  (I honestly don't know how they can justify the cost of clothing as it is, even if you halved the cost of wool!)   So buying more wool to make things; toys, stockings, jumpers, pen holders etc, seems like a dead-end.

Then revelation hit!!  (Amazing what things you think about in a darkened room whilst breastfeeding in the middle of the night...am never sure if I'm awake or dreaming up these things).  In my regular charity shop trawls, I can hunt out wool jumpers and unravel them for a giant supply of cheap wool!  It surely can't be that hard, once I've managed to undo the sticking that holds it all together.  So watch this space on whether it works or not (photos to follow later in 2012).

I've also decided I need to be more creative on food production.  This week I managed to get our new compost bin in place, in the corner of the backyard.  I've never been too optimistic about the amount of food we could generate in such a small space, with little sunshine, and lots of paving slabs.  Although the pots have done us proud, with tomatoes, apples and bay leaves.

But I noticed that we have a little strip of soil between the slabs and the wall (probably not quite 2 foot deep), which is hidden under bits of slate.  The soil underneath seems really good.  And all I need to do is relocate the apple tree pots (I'll probably need to get rid of a few shrubs, which aren't that exciting anyway), and we'll have a little strip farm of our own.  So I've emailed our friends who have a real strip farm (the source of our apple harvest earlier this year, and the beautiful bunch of mistletoe on our front door this Christmas...thanks!!!!) to get some tips on where to start, and hopefully we'll get some veg going later this year.  Something else to try and regularly fit into the week, but I've always aspired to an allotment later on, but am put off by the distance we'd have to travel to get to it....so no excuse on this challenge!

So as the New Year dawns there are lots of ideas and activities bubbling away.  It really is exciting, and I'm hoping that January and February (traditionally my least favourite months of the year (even though my birthday is in the midst of them)) are more positive than normal.  The biggest challenge will be time, especially as I juggle returning to work too, but I like nothing better than change and a challenge...so here goes.

So Happy New Year, to anyone reading this, and I hope you find something to challenge you this coming year, and find some richness in less too!

Week -5 Update

So I've got this mad ambition to do a brief weekly update on challenges/successes/thoughts on each week, to track my day-to-day a bit more, rather than simply the main things I'm thinking on.  We'll see how many gaps appear in this!

(As it's not 2012 yet, you'll notice some minus figures in my countdown.)

Southsea Greenhouse on the Seafront

Food - I've just received my first organic veg box from the 'Southsea Greenhouse' which is a local co-operative that has started up this year.  It was a really impressive array of veg (although some bits were washed...a shame, as it lasts so much longer when it's still covered in soil), and has slightly soften my trepidation of not getting our normal Riverford box (which I highly recommend for those that don't live locally to Southsea).

Waste - no composting going on yet, so I weighed the black bag with trepidation this morning.  8.5kg of rubbish, of which 4kg was disposable nappies!!!  We only get through 2 a day as both kids sleep in them, rather than the terries...imagine what the weight would be if we just did disposable!  Mariella must have felt my pain, as tonight (bless her) she announced that she didn't want a night nappy any more...so fingers crossed I don't have lots of wash loads of bedding to do tomorrow!

Christmas Presents - with less than a month to go, I'm trying to be creative, although I've simply given up on the gifts that need to be sent further afield.  Note to self: start planning earlier for them next year!  However, I'm so happy with how simple and quick it was to make homemade Spiced Apple Chutney...will be doing that again, and am excited about a tiffin recipe I've found with popping candy inside (I'm hoping a great surprise for the kids that will receive it!).  I've also managed to pick up two unused baby clothing items at a local charity shop for a friend who's just given birth...it's amazing what people give away.

Inspiring Reading - I got the latest Conspire: magazine this week 'Food, Feast & Table'.  Another great read and challenge!  An inspiring article about a community that not only has a community garden (fruit, veg & livestock) but also composts all the local households food waste...has set my mind buzzing with questions about how we might add it into some local mutterings about a community allotment on our patch...just need to work out a bit of land!  (As ever there is so much in this, I might need to do a seperate post about it.)

What a week...and this was meant to be short!!!

My Reducing Waste Challenge

So as well as being more careful about what stuff comes into our house, I'm also eager to look at what goes out of our house, so as well as passing things on to others, I'm wanting us to reduce the waste that goes out in the black sack each week.

Lots of stuff goes in the green recycling bin, and we take glass to the glass banks or use and pass them on to bottle jams and chutneys (am currently making apple chutney from our orchard picking harvest).  But we still seem to have a pretty heavy black sack each week.

Previously when we had a garden we used to compost, but with our small back yard we haven't done it since moving to our new house.  A while ago I read 'Confessions of an Eco-Shopper' by Kate Lock and learnt about bokashi's for the first time.  I've been meaning to look into them for ages now, and when I logged onto StreetBank the other week and discovered locally that someone had one that I could borrow, I jumped at the chance. So I've collected it this evening, and now have to work out where to get the bran from, and need to get hold of a small compost bin as well.

So whilst I do that, I thought for the next 2 weeks I would weigh our black sack before putting it out, and have something to compare when I start composting again.  I'll probably end up having to give away the compost that we generate as I can't see us needing much in our back yard, but that just adds to the beauty of this new part of my experiment.  I'll keep you updated on progress!

Update on Weighing
23rd Nov = 10kg (before the bokashi enters our life)