Five things

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 16 November 2011 in chickens, frugal, making | 3 comments

ONE. Two of the chickens are in moult – Ginger the Black Rock and Ms Mauve, an ISA Brown. There have been a lot of feathers about in the coop and run but neither have gone too bald (… yet?). Both have lost their tail feathers so look strangely round and last week both lost neck/head feathers, but Ginger’s have pretty much grown back now, so only Ms Mauve is left looking bit funny.

(I’m not keeping them/her in a separate run from the rest of the crew during the moult, just some of the others had just wandered outside of the run while I was taking photos. She followed shortly afterwards when she realised that there were leaves to scratch in out there, weeeee!)

TWO. Sticking to chicken related things, we’ve discovered that if chickens eat achocha, it taints their eggs like onions or (wild) garlic. I’ve been feeding the chicken some of the many, many achocha fruit we’ve had this season in an effort to get through them before the frost turns them all to mush. They weren’t sure about them at first but now om-nom-nom them up. We discovered the tainting issue – which isn’t unpleasant, per se, in savoury food but definitely there – on Monday, just after I’d taken them the remains of the entire 15ft tall wall of achocha to pick through. Monday’s eggs have been quarantined so they don’t accidentally get used for a dessert!

THREE. One of the reasons why I’ve not been writing much here is #NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month. All my spare (and not so spare) time has been sucked up by that, so not only have I not been blogging much, I’ve not really been crafting or playing either. But on the plus side, because I’ve been so focus, I’ve written over 60,000 so far and I’ve not been idly browsing the web or eBay so I’ve saved money by avoiding temptation. Woo!

FOUR. Despite #NaNoWriMo getting in the way of my crafting, I have had a couple of evenings off from writing (when I was too exhausted/distracted to write the day we found Kia and after a busy day in the garden at the weekend) and I’m only about four rows off finishing the back of one of my crochet tops. If I hadn’t been writing, it would be long finished by now – and I’ve got an idea of how I can make another one which is just as nice but even quicker. Because I don’t already have enough WIPs…

FIVE. A little paranoid perhaps but I’m rather aware how quickly we’re getting through our wood pile. I cut a load of wood on Sunday but we’ve already nearly got through the ones for the “big” stove in the office. I think we might start using the central heating more until the winter properly kicks in, so we can see what it holds: I’m worried about racing through all our wood supplies now, then finding ourselves without heating for a fortnight during a super cold spell like we did last year (our boiler broke at just the wrong time). I much prefer our free heating from wood than our expensive gas, but I think I’d rather have a few weeks of expensive warmth than risk having no warmth at all!

What’s going on in your life this week?

November mini-goals

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 2 November 2011 in goals | 1 comment

I’ve got some mighty “mini” goals this month!

1. Declutter November
The Decluttering in November challenge I’ve been mentioning repeatedly – between the every day challenge and the mini-challenges, I’m going to get rid of 50 pieces of junk from around our home/garden in the next 30 days. John’s doing it too so we’ll hopefully have 100 less things by the end of the month – but more importantly, hopefully we’ll both be more conscious of how clutter grows and stays here!

2. NaNoWriMo
I’m taking part in NaNoWriMo – (Inter)National Novel Writing Month – this year for the first time. I’ve been meaning to do it for a few years but managed to forget the kickoff each time before now. This year though, I’m onboard and I’ve got to write 50,000 in 30 days. (A standard non-genre novel is around 80,000-100,000 words, so it’s shorter than normal but the point is to bang something out, sod the quality, then expand/refine it later.) If anyone else is doing it and wants to be my writing buddy, I’m louisa_

3. Finish making one of the two crochet tops I’m currently working on
I have the attention span of a fruit fly when it comes crafts. I am determined to finish one of the tops this month though – I’m cold, I need the woolly layer ASAP!

4. Do all the winter preparations ‘to-do’s
A long list! I’ve already done a few but need to do the others before winter properly sets in.

5. Batch cook another 2x2servings of meals for the freezer
I liked having this mini-goal last month so want to do it again. The freezer is currently full of meat from our recent Swillington Farm delivery but once we start making some progress through that, I want more homemade ready meals added to our stash.

6. Make bacon
All the cool kids have been doing it recently and we’ve got some pork that would be perfect for a little curing transformation. Plus, it’ll help free up some room in the freezer for that batch cooking – by storing the meat in our tummies :)

Have you got any particular aims or to-dos for this month?