Monday & Tuesday

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 14 June 2011 in chickens, frugal, growing | 2 comments

There were some ox-eye daisies (yes?) in the horses’ field yesterday – they confused John, made him think he’d shrunk or was suddenly in the land of the giants. He picked one and carried it home for me.

The garden looked very fresh and green after Sunday’s rain; the chickens, on the other hand, looked slightly bedraggled in the drizzle yesterday morning. They have three dry places that they can go when it’s wet but what do they do? they stand out in the rain. Also, Ginger the chicken seems to be thinking about going broody AGAIN. She only came out of being broody at the start of May. Apparently it’s not unheard of for chickens to go broody again if they didn’t set any eggs the first time round. I’ve poked her out the nest boxes two days in a row now, bah.

We’ve had very little slug damage this year – presumably because it’s been so dry – but the bloomin’ things have found our ripening strawberries. *shakes fist* Strawberries have now been relocated to the balcony and I’ll steal some of the chickens’ bedding straw to use if the attacks continue.

Yesterday, I ordered us a monthly meat box from Swillington Organic Farm. They’re not cheap but they tick a lot of the important sustainable/organic/local boxes for us. We should receive our box at the end of the month – can’t wait.

And I actually did two mini-goal things today: got a new phone deal (which was a May mini-goal – only 13 days late) and got a new gas/electricity arrangement too. On the former, I got a new phone & new inclusive mobile internet allowance just by asking – didn’t have to play any “I’m leaving, convince me to stay games”, which was nice. The gas & elec isn’t going to be quite as cheap as it was last year (when it was very cheap) but we decided to go for an 18-month fixed price arrangement – we don’t usually like fixed price things but it was barely any more than the variable so seemed worth it. I did think about play the cashback game – swapping suppliers every six weeks or so, and picking up the cashback deals each time – a friend of mine (who may not want to be named..?) pays for more than half of his yearly energy costs doing that – but decided that I’m a bit too disorganised to do it and I’d probably mess it up by getting locked into a more expensive deal etc, so it wasn’t worth the effort/risk for me.

How has the start of your week been?

Ten things

Posted by louisa on Monday 6 June 2011 in chickens, cooking, DIY, frugal, growing, soap | 2 comments

1. Buff the chicken has been in isolation since last Wednesday since the others started really *viciously* bullying her (as I said on Twitter, it’s disturbing how vicious chickens can be). I think there have been pecking order issues over the last few weeks and it’s stopped her being able to eat properly. She feels very bony (even for a pure breed) and is weak as a result – looking back at old photos of her, the difference is stark. I’m hoping some time by herself and some special food will turn her around but I wouldn’t be surprised to go down one morning to find she’d died overnight. Sigh.
2. We painted the bathroom on Sunday – not the woodwork yet but the second coat of the walls, ahead of the cupboards being fitted tomorrow. One June mini goal down (nearly)!
3. In other housey news, last year we found a hidden coal hole at the front of our house and over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been having it damp-proofed and turned into a utility room. It’s not been cheap but now has a proper full height doorway and is a proper extra room for the house – it’ll free up room in the kitchen too. It should be finished this week, hurrah!
4. While that’s going on at great expense inside, John’s DIY-mad dad is fitting a fence for us outside — to help contain the dog and the chickens a bit more. The fence is going to be rather frugal for a new fence as the lumberyard John’s dad goes to was throwing away about 20 horizontal fencing beams and some posts, because they’d got slightly bleached in the sun so couldn’t be sold “as new” any more. Madness! But useful timing for us!
5. And speaking of freebies, someone was taking a seemingly brand new electric staple gun in its case at the tip last time John’s dad was visiting – they told him it was “broken” but he took it home and found they’d just inserted the staplers in the wrong place. We now have a brand new working electric staple gun for free ;)
6. I never used to use bar soap to wash anywhere other than my hands – it left a film and dried my skin, causing my face in particular to get greasier in compensation. But my olive oil soap leaves my skin clean and soft – and it stays feeling that way for 12+ hours unlike just about every other cleaning method I’ve tried. I very much like it.
7. I made the ugliest soda bread I’ve ever made today – I don’t know what went wrong but it grew really unevenly. Still tasted lovely with soup for lunch though :)
8. Some of my rapini has gone to seed – the heads weren’t big enough to warrant harvesting. Damn the hot spring!
9. Do you make your own quiches? I’m looking for (frugal) store-cupboard recipe quiche ingredient ideas for when we’ve not got much else in — Viksterbean on Twitter suggested antipasti such as olives and artichokes, and that made me think about adding a swirl of pesto too. Any other ideas?
10. Boron would like it to be known that I did not write this post alone. Apologies for the poor quality of my webcam – I only ever use it for these type of pics ;)



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Yesterday’s consumables and their packaging

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 17 May 2011 in frugal, green, zero waste | 15 comments

Last week, I saw this post over at Not Dabbling In Normal as part of Real Clean month over there – Xan had listed every cleaning product she’d used before 7am – noting any packaging involved and the presence of synthetic chemicals where applicable. She does a lot of cleaning before 7am!

I thought it was a really interesting exercise because it’s so easy to become blind to the things we do/use on a daily basis – and you can’t take steps to cut back from an environmental/chemical-reduction or frugal point of view until you know what you’re using. I couldn’t repeat the exercise exactly (because I’m not generally awake by 7am let alone having done any cleaning!) so I decided to track all the consumables I personally use/waste I produce during the day, so see where I can make changes.

Yesterday was a slightly unusual day – I went to the theatre in the evening (so I didn’t have a proper meal and wore a little make-up — very unusual for me!) and I didn’t actually do any cleaning/laundry except for washing some cutlery at lunchtime. I’m going to repeat this exercise offline on random different days over the next fortnight to hopefully get fuller picture – then I’ll use that information to cut down. I can already see some areas where I could easily reduce our contact with synthetic chemicals and packaging (eg, make liquid hand soap, use a washable dish cloth, make more of our own cakes/sweet treats, and reassess my face “cleansing” routine).

All the consumables/waste I produced yesterday

In order of use – grouped together where applicable to make it easier to read and I’ve only listed things the first time they were used.

Things in bold and italics were single-use items, immediately heading to landfill. Things in italics were multiple-use/bulk-bought items that would eventually even up in landfill when the pack/bottle was finished.

Everything is shop-bought unless specified otherwise.

Some recent treats from blogland

Posted by louisa on Thursday 5 May 2011 in frugal, growing, personal finance | 0 comments

I seem to have spent nearly all of today reading. No, not our many many books but blogs. I’ve read some great stuff so thought I’d share:

• First up, Failure Is An Option by The Greening of Gavin‘s Gavin. Oh my yes. I have “failed” so many times over the last few years – and every single time I learnt a lesson and will not repeat that mistake. I rarely use super expensive seeds and compost/pots can be reclaimed so it’s only costing my time to try, fail and learn not to do that again. I like hobbies which allow free/super cheap do-overs (I have frogged certain yarns oh so many times). Yes, failure is frustrating and it makes it feel like a waste of time but if you treat it as a learning curve then it’s not a waste, it’s a building block of knowledge.
• And speaking of minimising time expenditure, Fiona, The Cottage Smallholder, has been writing about perennial veg recently – tree cabbages and orach. (The latter isn’t perennial but is a self-seeder, and has a very long harvesting window.) Two interesting veggies to think about when I’ve got my “miniature forest garden” planning hat on.
• Changing the topic, I liked this post about avoiding slipping into the trap of always having to make the ultimate healthy homecooked food for every meal – especially when you’re just starting out. I’m a fan of gradual but steady changes that’ll stick rather than extreme shifts which might not. Looking back now, I’m amazed at some of our old habits or the way we used to cook things – but like with gardening, they were steps along the path which is taking us forward.
• It’s not a wise, overreaching philosophy for life like some of the other posts above but I really enjoy Jono’s Real Men Sow updates each month, working out exactly how much money he’s saved by growing his own. That’s how I’m going to keep track of our output this year too.
• And sticking with the super practical, I’m going to treat ManVsDebt‘s latest action list as a to-do list for the next few months. There is, obviously, an irony that some of my favourite recent blog posts have been all about action while I’ve been reading rather than acting today…

Have you read any good blog posts recently? Do share!

From pelmet to planter

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 3 May 2011 in frugal, making, wood stuff | 6 comments

Yesterday, we went to see John’s mum & dad, and spotted that one of their neighbours had put a fancy (curtain) pelmet out on the street in front of their house to be taken away – either by John’s dad (who they know is a salvager of random things or by a scrap person). I thought it looked pretty sturdy so bagsied it instead.

A surplus plank of wood and four screws later, and I had a pretty new herb trough :)

The original plan had been to wall mount it (I had some old brackets that would work & look nice, and it would save having to add a back piece to it) but it turned out that because of a supporting fence post, it didn’t fit where I’d hoped to put it. It does though fit perfectly on the little ledge behind the greenhouse.

I’ve drilled some drainage holes in the bottom and will add more rocks-as-crocks to stop it getting waterlogged (if it ever rains). As I’ve mentioned before about that ledge, it’s not *that* accessible in the summer so I can’t use it for things I need to pick regularly – but it will be good for companion plants & not-picked-often herbs. It’s not massive — 5ft long, about 8inch deep and about 6inch wide — but it’ll make a bit of use of some otherwise dead space. Plus, I think it looks pretty cool :)

And weee, another freebie :)

April – end of month review

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 3 May 2011 in chickens, growing, less than 12 clothes challenge, making, personal finance | 5 comments

April feels like it’s lasted forever – it’s not dragged in a bad way, just seems about four years since the end of March and the drama production (which finished on 9th April).

April has been a glorious month – gorgeous weather just about every day. *Too* glorious – there haven’t been any April showers around here and it’s mighty dry. I don’t want May or the summer to be a complete wash out but I wouldn’t mind the odd wet day.

Goals in 2011 progress

Since we’re a third of the way through the year, I’ve written a full update on my personal goals over on my blog. Out of the 11 goals and five sub-goals listed over there, I’ve completed one goal (and one sub-goal), six (and two) are in progress, and four (and two) are still to do.

I haven’t really made any separate progress on my additional Really Good Life goals – am reviewing them now to see what I can do over the next month.

Buy less than 12 items of clothing in 2011

Amazingly, I’ve still not bought anything – I’m genuinely shocked! I’ve online window shopped a couple of times – adding things to my basket but then forcing myself to wait until the next day to actually buy it. Each time I’ve been less enthused to finish the order the next day and just closed the tab instead. Saved a lot of money!

After March’s drawers sort through, I went shopping in my wardrobe for shirts in April – reminded myself what I had and found out what fit and what didn’t. I actually ended up getting rid of half the shirts in my wardrobe but have worn the remaining ones more since then so I actually feel like I’ve added to my options by doing that.

Growing stuff and the chickens