Seed Raiders

DH called out to me today to come and look at these thieves, eating the seeds out of my sunflowers! There were two of them, and they were so beautiful I didn't have the heart to get upset at them. Unfortunately the pictures aren't the greatest, as I didn't have time to get the settings right on my camera, and was taking pics from indoors in DD's room, but aren't they magnificent? I think though, that I might have to cover the sunflowers with something, or we aren't going to get any seeds for ourselves!

And while I'm posting, here are the pictures from yesterday's harvest. Half a bucket of potatoes from the second potato patch (I planted 16), a bowl of cherry tomatoes from the bushes that self seeded and have received absolutely no care up in the old garden, and one almost perfect nectarine.

Decluttering and writing are still happening here, although we also mowed the lawn (all 3/4 of an acre of it, minus house/shed/gardens etc) with DH's dad's help. I have found heaps more things to get rid of, and the car is full right now of the playgym DD outgrew a year ago, the baby swing, and a box of toys. Can't count them though, until they are completely off the property! I'm almost on track for NaNo, just under 400 words to go today to make the quota. So I guess I'd better go get writing!

Nothing New November

Well, I guess I've started November off with a bang. I got stuck into the decluttering this morning with gusto, and have so far taken 12 items to the donation bins (they don't count until they're OUT of the house!). A couple of bags of toys, several bags of outgrown or not worn clothing, and various kitchen items.

I had a few dilemma's this morning wondering exactly how to count things. I went through my cutlery draw, and got rid of the remains of the old cutlery set, but should I count each individual knife, fork and spoon, or count them all as one? Clothes were the same. There were so many that it seemed cheating to count them all individually, yet too much to count them all as one. I've settled on counting sets (such as cutlery) as one, and for larger things, like clothes and toys, to count each bag as one. Either way, I've removed nearly a (hatchback) boot full of things, and still plenty more to go!

NaNo is going slightly less well. At 1,465 words, I'm slightly under the daily quota of 1,667 words, but still off to a good start. I'm hoping to catch up the shortfall next week, when DH has 4 days off mid-week.

Gearing up for November

Things could be fairly quite around here for the next month, as most of my writing energy goes towards making my 50,000 word goal as part of NaNoWriMo.



I've made this goal for the last two years, but at that time I wasn't trying to garden or make all these things at the same time. But I will give it a go again regardless.

DH and I have also set ourselves a challenge for this month, we're not going to buy anything other than food and medications for the month. Any money saved will go towards our credit card debt (which was run up with building expenses).

This is more than just a money saving challenge though. Over the last 18 or so months, since we first packed up our unit ready to move, we've lived out of boxes, many of which are still not unpacked, meaning much of the stuff we have either DD has grown out of, or we just plain don't need. We are all feeling a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume of STUFF in our house (not to mention still in the garage!), and until it is under control, we don't want to bring anything more into the house. So this isn't just about money and spending, it's about not bringing anything new into the house full stop. Not from any source.

And as if that wasn't enough for one month, we're going to try to get rid of existing clutter. I'm hoping we can get at least 100 items OUT OF THE HOUSE (or shed). That's a little over 3 items a day. Think we can do it? I reckon we can.

So expect a lot of posts about how we've resisted bringing new things into the house (and hopefully found some creative and innovative solutions to anything that we are lacking), and updates on how many items we've gotten rid of. And, of course, some updates on my word count.

Sewing Day

After spending a few hours last night surfing blogs and following link after link to cool tutorials, I decided to try some of them out today. These are door stops, made from this tutorial. Very simple and easy, and very practical. Since DH put some grease on the toilet door, it mysteriously closes itself whenever you aren't looking. Not a problem, except when you're trying to help a 4yo in there, and one of your bumps yourself on a door in the wrong place. So the blue one is in the toilet, and the white stripy one is in the laundry, who's door often blows closed with an annoyingly loud bang (usually when I'm out hanging up the washing, and trying to her DD yelling something inside.)

Since DD was so taken with the rice filled pyramid door stops, and was determined to carry them around, negating their usefulness in preventing doors blowing closed, I made her these bean-bags to throw instead, based on this tutorial (which I had read, but not planned on making, so going on memory). She was successfully diverted, and the door-stops have remained (mostly) in place.

And this was my final project, finished only because I hate to leave things undone. It's a floor mat, and a woeful attempt at the quilt in this tutorial. Unfortunately, I don't have a roller cutter, making it kind of hard to get the squares, well, square. I also made the strips between the pieces a little too thick (those white ones), and it was only saved from awfulness by the pretty blue border. Luckily, aside from the border, it was all made with leftover scraps and recycled materials, so I don't feel too badly about it. It's a learning experience, and I'm sure when it's on the floor and we're wiping our feet on it, we won't notice all the many imperfections. (Well, anyone but me probably won't anyway.

Potato Cages

I haven't done much of a garden update lately simply because I haven't gotten around to taking any photos. But I have been working to my plan, and things are slowly starting to come together. The potato cages, shown on the left hand side of the house, are in.

I've managed to fit 4 sugar cane bale cages in and the two I originally planted with 9 potatoes each are powering along. I've just covered them with the second lot of mulch, they're growing so quickly. I planted 9 more potatoes in the next cage and will plant the final one in another few weeks time. We're still going on the last of the potatoes harvested from my first patch. Once this lot is gone, there is another patch to harvest. I'm not sure if those will be enough to carry us through to this lot maturing, but we'll have to wait and see.

And not really garden related (though it is a flower!) DD and I made this for her baby cousin, after her fascination with DD's dinosaur.

Lemon Butter

I had my second go at making lemon butter today, and luckily it turned out much better than my first go. Not that I didn't eat and enjoy all of that first attempt, but this time, when I tasted a little of the spills, I was transported instantly back to eating my grandmother's lemon butter as a child. This is how lemon butter is supposed to taste!

I made up double the recipe this time, since I have plenty of eggs to use up. The chooks are laying 4-5 eggs a day now, and even though we are selling extras to friends and family (for $2 a dozen, to cover chook food), we still have more than we can eat. Double the recipe calls for a dozen eggs, so without your own chickens, this could be quite a costly recipe (although still probably cheaper than buying it at the store). And I think that the eggs from our free range chooks is what really made this special. Look at the colour of it! Most lemon butter you see these days is a kind of washed out yellow, not bright and vibrant like this. That is the actual colour of the lemon butter, no added colours, and no photoshopping the picture (well, not to alter the colour anyway).

By my calculations, this recipe probably ends up at about $1 a jar. All up, the eggs were free, the butter - 225g, about $1, the sugar - just under a 1kg, $1 (I buy it in bulk), and the lemons were $2 a kg, I used 5, not exactly sure what they weighed, but lets say 1kg, so $2. $5 for the 5 jars. I have no idea what lemon butter sells for in the shops, but I'm guessing that it's at least $2 a bottle, saving me 50%.

It's now sitting in the fridge with the remainder of my last strawberry jam. Hopefully, it should last me six months or so before I need to make more.

Ditching the Plastic

Plastic bags that is. We've actually been plastic bag free (mostly) for a while now, but I've only just gotten around to taking some pictures of these. While we used green bags for our groceries for quite a while, it took a little longer to ditch the plastic fruit bags. When we started going to the markets regularly, it seemed somehow even more silly to be still putting our fruit in plastic bags, so I made up these vegie bags from some old curtain material. They're just simple drawstring bags, really easy to make, although it did take me until yesterday to get around to putting the drawstring in. They worked just fine without it though.

The trick to making these is to use as lightweight materials (material and drawstrings) as possible, so that they aren't adding weight to your fruit and veg prices. Also, make sure you use something see-through so that the cashiers can work out what you're buying. Finally, I used french seams to make sure that they weren't going to break at an inopportune moment. Several months of use, and they're still going strong. When we get home from the markets, I empty the fruit into the cupboard/fridge, and chuck them in the wash so that they're ready for next week.

Here they are full of fruit, they're about the size of an A4 page, which seems to be a pretty good size, although we usually buy two bags full of bananas! Since my green bags are nearing the end of their days, and actually aren't that green being made from what is basically plastic, I'm working on making some replacement cloth bags for general grocery shopping. This is my prototype, made form an old sheet (which is poly-cotton, so not great for clothes). It works great, but still needs a bit more fiddling with the shape and placement of the handles. I much prefer it over the green bags, although I think it could benefit from being a bit stiffer in places.