Another Way to 'Keep' Food

Or should I say, another way to 'deal' with food.  We can keep food in the ground in the garden, in the fridge or freezer, we could possibly 'can' or bottle our own, we can air dry things like herbs, and we can bake but the other thing I never really paid much attention to is drying food, as in, with a food dehydrator.

This post on the Milkwood blog got me thinking and then oops I clicked on this link and I was stuck.  Exacalibur indeed.  Another thing to add to my 'dreams are free' list.  With the Excalibur, such a short use of resources (electricity, which can be offset somewhat by grid solar) in a long term use machine (the dehydrator) using food you are happy to use (organic apples, say) and that results in a much more economical outcome - for example instead of $40 a kilo for shop bought dried apples (and their numbers in them) you can pay even maybe $10 a kilo for organic apples and you still come out waaaay in front even if you include the electricity cost.

I would probably have a crack at fruit leathers, dried apples, prunes, semi-dried tomato and whatever else I think we would eat.  My only question is how to store the dried foods for, and how long they store for?  Do you dry foods and if so how?

Bulk Buying and the Ethics of Choice

Last week, our bulk delivery came.  Currants, pepitas, sunflower seeds, 25kg bags of organic flour, 25kg of golden syrup (yes, that's a lot - we use it often in baking) and so on.

Organic White Flour by Weston Milling

This is where I spoke about before, the ethics of choice.  For example, a bulk item might be organic, but can I get it from a local source or does it come from interstate?  Is that extra travel offset by the much less packaging, and meaning I can afford the organic one because it comes in bulk and is less cost than the 1kg bags at the shop?

24 Hours - Baking Effort

 In the last 24hours the kitchen has produced the following:

Ethical Dairy - How do YOU choose?

Unfortunately, my knowledge of this has only been relatively recent.  I thought that unlike caged hens, surely dairy cows had it better.  Well, they do, but they don't depending on which farm and how you look at it.  Cows have to be pregnant or feeding a calf, to keep making milk.  So cows are continually impregnated.  So they don't get a rest and then what to do if the calves are boys?  Ship them off to market... well, ok because that's how most commercial meat comes about but exactly how - and at what age?  And what are the rules that make it ethical and are they adhered to?

Do they go at only a few days old, frightened and very vulnerable?  Just a few days born, with no feed and no assurance of gentle or ethical treatment?

Kraul Basket Cable Car Kit

I ordered the Kraul Basket Cable Car Kit for the children for Christmas but they were popular (apparently I wasn't the only one who liked them!) and we had to wait for more stock to come from Germany.  That's ok, it's good to have to wait sometimes, patience and anticipation.  Tracie from Dragonfly Toys was lovely, excellent customer service.  This week, the basket cable car kit arrived.

More Barrels

Following on from our 'watertanks' that we did using olive barrels, giving us just under 1000l capacity (950l for $154.71), we have another half dozen or so barrels and I'm trying to figure out where to put them and how.  Do I put them all in one place as a big array, or spread them out a little bit?

barrel array done Sept 2011.

 So today, because I am trying to do more rather thank think about doing more, I have put the new barrels

Baby Basket with a Natural/Organic Approach

My Husband asked me to do up a basket for his work colleague, who's baby is due very soon.  I like to try and include natural/organic and Fairtrade items so included in the basket was:

Benefits of Branches (prunings)

Most of us know that prunings can generally be used in the garden.  As mulch.  Sometimes as stakes if you strip them down.  But if you don't have a mulcher, then it's not as easy, and a mulcher uses power etc.  I have found that when I prune the mulberry (for the sake of neighbourly relations), I lay the mulberry prunings down under the mulberry tree and by the time the tree is next due a prune, they're just not there any more.  Mmm... so that's good.

But there's more than just the 'back into the earth' benefit of prunings.  I found they're good to keep chooks off certain areas.  For example, there's self sewn melon/pumpkin plants coming up under the apples and the peach/plum/avacado/ area.  Usually in their scratching efforts (we have almost zero weed issues out the back thanks to the girls) they accidentally kick up the plant, exposing the roots and it dies.

Society Perpetuates Consumption - torn between scenarios?

You know the saying 'self-fulfilling prophecy', right?  well I'm trying to find a way to morph this into summing up our society and it's continual need to (negatively) consume.  Our society is set up in such a way that we have to consume to NOT consume or that we still consume even when we're not consuming... we just delay our measuring of it. Does that make sense?  We're just completely wired onto the wrong circuit board, programmed the wrong way.  A 'self-consuming' society, maybe?

For example ... we need to reduce our footprint, our carbon emissions... and to do that, what do we do?  We make stuff to do that.  We don't just do it but we make stuff  to do it. We buy stuff to do it. Maybe we decide that we'll have the eco-friendly [whatever product] without asking do we actually need that product in the first place.  Consuming is still consuming no matter what the product.  We are just programmed to, whether we like it or not. 

We often don't change our lifestyle that tells us we need that thing... we just look for a more eco way to have that thing.  Do we really need it?  Or do we just want it?  'Ok, so we need a fridge but so we don't want to consume nasty electricity we'll go solar.  So we need solar panels and invertors or we need batteries for stand alone solar'... but they're just substitutes - less consuming in the long run substitutes, but still substitutes.  Maybe instead we should ask, do we really need a fridge?  Why?  Isn't that because our society is set up to consume and have a range of things at our fingertips at any moment?  Butter, eggs, yoghurt, milk, cake, meat thawing, fruit, veges... we excuse the energy 'needed' to keep them and have ALL of them available right now, because of convenience.  Why?  Because the way society is set up means few people have the time, the space, the skills, the energy or the availability to do things differently.

So will there be a truly 'sustainable' consumption based economy/industry?  Is that possible?

I try and ask myself when I buy something, 'if the SHTF, will I really need this?'.  Usually the answer is no but sometimes it's not that easy.  For example, I might not need it when the SHTF, but it might be really good to do now to help me get to the next step for preparing for then.  So is it ok to have it?  and for every 15 'good eco' things I do, there's at least another 15 that aren't 'good'.

Do you ever wonder exactly how we're going to do it?  As in... you know it has to be done, but really, how will it be done?

Gilding in 'The Great Disruption' talks about the 'one-degree war', and when you read it you kinda have a bit of hope and thing yeh, you know what, this can be done.  You get a bit upbeat... and then you watch people toot and abuse someone who's not pulling out in traffic, and pull out and go around them, only to finally see someone stop and realise the person is slumped over the wheel, collapsed... or you see the piles of landfill in trolleys in the shop queue, people abusing each other down the street, and all the nasty stuff in the world.
And then you look at all the political infighting and insane decisions and complete waste of Gvernment (aka taxpayer) money and opportunities and it's almost a joke.

So you might thing well, stuff waiting for the politicians, I'll do it myself.  And in your area, with what you may or may not have resembling community, you do try.  You work your way around ridiculous council and Government policy, rejection of societal norms, try and find a group of like minded people and get on with it, all the while wondering if it's ever enough and knowing that it's not ideal and telling yourself it's better than nothing and that you have to 'be the change you want to see'.  You try and deal with the lack of 'localism', and how spread out your community is.  The fact that you have to travel for 30mins in a car, to achieve some of the tasks needed for your 'increasing self-reliance' and 'doing the right eco thing'.  That to purchase a product that's ethical, you have to pay for postage which is fine but means it comes from the other side of the world... and you wonder how on earth that works?

Then you think well... if the demand is there from consumers, the market will respond, right?  Local stuff will begin to dominate, right?  Free range eggs used to be a very niche single shelf (and product line, most times) on the shop shelf.  Now they take up sometimes a half of the shelf space available.  Fairtrade actually exists for coffee and chocolate.  Products made from recycled stuff, are available.  So you swing between hope and 'what the..?' and you wonder how things will be able to change in the time frame that's needed.

But in amongst this too and fro argument, of doing enough, but how and how much is enough, I think the thing that's most clear is that at the end of the day, if the change to a sustainable society isn't smooth (enough) human beings are just as vulnerable and susceptable to each other and nature as any other thing on the planet.  That's the bottom line.  And I think that's a lot of the reason why people deny the type of change that's needed, will happen AND why people don't change their lifestyle now.   We've* set up all this 'stuff' to remove ourselves from those vulnerabilities, to minimise them but they're almost all based on a growth based economy.  So when the growth based economy fails, so do our 'security blankets'... and we have to deal with the fact that our vulnerability is starkly revealed.

'Fail now and beat the rush' [when I can find the link for that I'll add it] sounds really good.  Sometimes though it's just not that simple.  There are big choices I'd like to make but they don't just impact me.  They impact my family, my kids.  Two big changes that come to mind would in one sense be a positive step to the goal I'm heading for, but in another way, would severely undermine the skills, health and preparedness of family who'd be with me in that move.

All I know is I can't put all the 'preparedness for change' eggs in one basket.  I have to be flexible and I have to be prepared to adjust.  Being comfortable with uncertainty of that scale, is probably one of the biggest challenges.  Skills you can acquire, communities you can eventually grow, but accepting uncertainty and it's consequences is not so easy.  Don't get me wrong, preparing is great.  It's essential.  But it has it's limits and that's I think the biggest thing to accept.

And then, you ramble it all out on a blog post because there's no real resolution, no 'going to the back of the book to check the answer', but it's good to get it out.  Tomorrow you'll feed the chooks and check for eggs, use your eco dish liquid, water the garden with your collected rainwater, have a cup of tea using scheme water on tap, tea bags from the other side of the world and milk in a plastic UHT container, and go to sleep in a house full of devices and 'stuff' that despite your efforts, are very eco-unsound, because they're habit.  And wonder how you'll ever achieve a true 'balance'.

*recognising that 'we' doesn't mean everyone has equal access to goods and service provision, and that a lot of people already deal with that vulnerability within the current society.

Simple Advent Calendar - yippee!

Finally. An advent idea I know I'll actually DO! This one, from 'Little Eco Footprints' blog is one we're going to do this Christmas. Better still we can make it together, collect up the leaves, string them up and the older kids can put the numbers on...

photo credit: Little Eco Footprints

simple. no 'consumer' outlay and no 'consumerism' focus. recyclable at the end. yet still catches the excitement of the countdown. brilliant!

now... the big question.

update on the 'ID this little guy'

I was allowed to take some more photos this morning. The 'silverbeet frog' as he will probably become known was out again this morning. I managed a few pics of different angles. So far as I can see s/he has 4 (maybe five, in one pic?) fingers on the front feet and three on the back?

Finally. Light in the tunnel.

After a few recommendations by other bloggers, I too have read the book 'The Great Disruption' by Paul Gilding.

You know when people say 'if you only ever read one book?' - well I think then you would be missing out... but that aside IF you only ever read one book - read this one.
This is not another 'end of the world due to climate change' books. Not quite.

Kids. Nature. Life. Pic taken in Jurien

Simple fact is it's not about 'what doom and gloom is to come' because it's already here,

I am only me

I am only me. Boy does that feel helpless at times, on an earth-scale. There is so much needing doing in the world, so many wrongs to right, it's just mind blowing to try and take it all in.

I reckon there's two motivators. Money. and Love.

It takes the love for each other and the Earth, to drive consumer demand to make the companies who make the big money, change their ways.. & companies and industry will change out of love... FOR MONEY.

If we could put humans on the moon, build the Panama Canal, defeat Hitler, and rebuild Europe after WWII, why can't we unite to create a viable planetary civilization? So far, we lack not the means, but only the will and the leadership.

Matthew Stein (author of 'When Technology Fails') 'The Perfect Storm: Six Trends Converging on Collapse".

It takes the love for each other and the Earth, to drive voters to make the big changes in Government and get someone in there who isn't there for the money *ahem* (certain gas project) but is there for the RIGHT reasons.

That's what it will take.

So as a consumer, be heard.
As a voter, be heard.
And be heard louder than those who love money more than the Earth.

'Sustainable options' are no longer the options of 'radical tree swinging hippies'. They are the options of clear thinking, well informed Australians of all levels of socio-economic and educational backgrounds. It's not hard to work out there's only one Earth.

Plans from now to Dec 2012

People think 'it' won't happen. 'It' already has - see this post here from the Witches Kitchen.

2012 increasing Our House Sustainability - Plans.

• more water tanks/barrels. Current: 950Litres with a view to increase
• fruit trees. Current: 24 trees with the rest to be in by the end of the year/early next
  
• fruit and veg beds: current 5 + pots, with hopefully the rest to be in by 2011/2012
• teeth: all defects remedied. Decreasing chance for recurrence.
• solar oven: would love to make one. Not sure if I can make one to a high enough heat/standard. Can't afford to buy one, really.
• pizza oven: query sustainability of fueling it, where would the 'fuel' (wood) come from?
• house heating/cooling: address the skylight in the kitchen with a view to home-modifying it to be a 'roof window' [add link]. We don't have a/c or heating, but we do have ceiling fans. Investigate other non-powered options/ways to reduce hot/cold
  
• the shed: transform to a workshop instead of the confused mess that it currently is.
• Seed System: refine my seed saving, do it more, and better organise current seeds (saved and/or purchased)
• drainage. Issues under the patio - install the 'floor gutter' and direct run-off to be productive.
• maintenance: gutters, patio supports, unfinished projects.
  

I'm sure there's more to add and I'll keep adding them. Feel free to suggest or link to what you're doing/plan to do.
There's a few things that already puzzle me. The Council does put in native plants for median strips (but few people know how to use those plants - what's potentially edible/medicinal on them) but why not fruit trees (and not just olives). As I commented on Gavin's post at The Greening of Gavin, the Council has a 100 reasons why they won't plant fruit trees in median strips - people who would throw oranges at cars currently throw bricks... so you may as well at least make it edible for those who don't throw bricks.

Anyway, so I am side-tracked again.

Dishwashers - do they really use less water?

So we've all heard that there was a study done that said dishwashers use less water than washing dishes by hand. I've tried to find the study to have a read of it myself, starting here (please share a link if you have found one).

So far I found:
Washing-up Behaviour and Techniques in Europe
Geschirrspülen in Europa (I'll need some help to read this one!)
Is a Machine More Efficient Than The Hand?
This vs That - Understanding the Grey in Green

This site again quotes 'the reasearch'

950L water 'tank' for $50+ fittings (updated with full costing)

Here's our 'water tanks'. The olive barrels were sourced through J (*thankyou J for organising the barrel co-op!*). They're food grade, come with great seals and lids. They're 190 litres each and being stacked down the side of an otherwise fairly unused area of the house, they won't get a lot of traffic (except when the mandarine trees fruit!). The shade cloth you can see is to keep the summer sun out of the windows but when the mandarines are taller they will take care of that too. Anyway, to the barrels...

In progress... almost done... Just under 1000 litres capacity. Just need to tidy up around them now!

Now completely DONE (see next pic)
with taps on the ends and lids on the barrels. Debate is on whether to put a breather hole in the top of the lids but I think if they're not screwed on super tight, should be ok.



My thoughts initially were to use one barrel for SR flour, one for plain etc but I've decded to go with using them as rainwater tanks and find an option that's a little more 'easy access' for the bulk foodstuffs. Here's the almost finished project. It has just the finishing bits to do but we're already catching what falls from the sky. yay!

Fruit trees - what's in and what next?

These are the fruit trees we have in the garden at the moment. For my own record I'm listing them here but also if you have the same or other varieties and can share how they grow or ones you've heard of, please do!

yay for not having to buy lettuce

There's quite a few varieties (of apples, for example) we can't get over here due to quarantine, which is a bummer and does restrict what we can grow AND how relevant a lot of the gardening books I read are. That said, there are reasons for quarantine, I get that, so you just gotta work with what you have.

So far on our standard block with a massive peppermint tree in the middle of the back yard (great for summer shade, swing, hammock but not so great for full sun for f&v) we have in:

Save the Kimberley...

Save the Kimberley from Barnett and his greed, arrogance and ignorance.

• What's being done is morally, ethically, humanly and environmentally WRONG... and that's without even taking into account the questions of legality.
• Being told your 'choice' is 'sell this land to us or we'll take it anyway' is NOT a choice.
• Providing 'education/health' etc as part of the 'deal' is a falsity when these services should be provided regardless and are available to all Australians without having to sell out their land and culture.
• We're looking at a Court Govt/Noonkenbah scenario again and that was disgusting enough. That it is happening in 2011 is beyond belief.

Stand up, make your voice heard and don't let Barnett's greed destroy the Kimberley and it's people's culture. Do what's RIGHT.

Ask Getup To Come on Board
Save the Kimberley
The Wilderness Society Kimberley Campaign

No jobs on a dead planet. No humanity when your heart is dead.

What's in it?

What is in it for people to deny that human beings are negatively impacting on the Earth? ...in a big way. That the damage 'we' are doing is so serious, that if we don't get our act together it will very much be a case of 'no jobs on a dead planet' bumper stickers peel off the long abandoned cars in empty streets. Seriously.

Greening of Gavin - Withholding Frustration. (video clip)

Is it even possible?

We are Op Shop regulars, make a lot of our own various things, happy DIYers, resuables rather than disposable, try and grow our own etc. When I do shop I research usually. For groceries I online shop for the main stuff in bulk roughly once every three weeks, with f&v being from our local grocer weekly. I could go on but you get the idea. We are aware and we do aim to keep reducing our impact on the Earth. I know we are a long way away yet.