So you bought nothing new in October … Big Deal?

Posted on November 4, 2012 by anthonypickering

So we finished buy nothing new in October a few days ago and it was an interesting experience.

In some ways enlightening in a lot of ways quite scary.

Yes we ended up using our exemptions. Andrea got all her bee equipment and I ended up getting a roll of bird netting other than that there were a few items we purchased that fell out of the exemption but not many but they are listed below.

Plastic cups for the kids
New sandals for the kids for the hot weather we had
Potting mix for seedlings

I found it easy once I got into the rhythm of it and found that I actually enjoyed the way it made me sit back and think about things. I can be a bit (LOT) driven to get things done and sometimes rather than finding something I already have I will like most people rush forward to bunnings or another store to get the items to get the job done to rush around some more. I very quickly realized all that the time spent charging around to get the items was greater than the time saved and I got more done by not running off to buy things ‘to save time’.

One of the main examples of this was pots. October is a major seedling time in our part of the world leading into summer September/October is the busiest time for us. As I couldn’t buy any trays or pots this year I had to go looking and find the ones I had and find new ways to grow things.

When I went looking a just kept finding plastic pots, in the back yard, in my shed, under my house. I am not only setup for this year but next and onward. I also trialed using old toilet rolls and other small cardboard items as seedling posts which has worked out brilliantly and will be repeated every year. I may or may not have done these without the buy nothing new month but it brought it into clarity and made me try things.

Equally we have tended to buy a lot of plastic box’s to store stuff and use the cardboard box’s as either weed suppressant in the back yard or it goes into recycling. Using them to store things while cleaning up the spare room (read old storage room/son’s new room) has been good we have looked at the boxes now as a resource for reuse. And as we have bought nothing new these are from work or family or friends. We now look at boxes and go ‘ooh that is a good one for this or that’. I also stored things in boxes freeing up the plastic boxes for better uses. It is quite ridiculous what we waste in this society and what can be reused.

While I enjoyed it and so did A. She found it a little harder particularly with the children but she admitted it was good to not go looking in shops for stuff. In time I think she would have got into the rhythm of second hand stores but at the end of the day the buy nothing new month is a short time we have enough that we don’t really need to buy things for a month in this rich society.

I have built both my garden shed and the chicken run out second hand materials found as hard waste. It took time as you are not working with standard materials and this will seem odd to many when you can just duck down to the store and buy a tin shed and put it up pretty quickly. In a lot of countries what I have built from is better than what many people have to build their homes.

I saw a show on a refugee camp and one of the things that really struck me was the bucket repairer. A plastic bucket here in Australia cost me about 40 seconds of earning time. If they break most people here would just throw them out. But this guy reworked them and repaired them and kept parts to repair another. Given the embodied energy in the item yet again the third world through necessity is doing what the rest of us should be doing by default.

This is not for everyone and it will be a long time before most Australians are forced to do it by cost (and I hope we never really get there as by that stage the already dire situation for the guy repairing buckets is going to be terminal) but it is something we should be doing as we have the greatest impact on the planet through our profligate and stupidly wasteful ways.

Perhaps a better way for us in the first world is to use our wealth to purchase items that last longer and are more ethical and really show the value of that embodied energy and resources. We purchased handmade Italian leather boots some time ago. Yes they were expensive but they have lasted through our daughter and now our son and looking like they will last should the plan of a third come to fruition and then go to friends or family. Put your value into that embodied energy and allow those not so wealthy in the world to do what they need to do to get by.

At the end I was a bit surprised that we didn’t rush out and buy stuff. We didn’t seem to need to. Yes A. bought some clothes but that more to do with a giant growing baby and a wedding we had to attend than just shopping withdrawal symptoms.

So where to from here?

I enjoyed it and would like to do this for a quarter next time and see how it goes but it will require careful negotiation at the end of the day I am in a family and a relationship and forcing your own views on people is just being a zealot and that does not help change anything.

What I can do is to work on myself and fixing that up first. I am not sure if I will ever get to the point of my neighbor who would not spend by his own accounting more than 10% of his wage on new stuff and I will most certainly never ever get to the guy who repairs buckets but as I play peekaboo and chasey with my son in between writing this post I am reminded that is what I personally have many reasons to try.

Lacto Brewed Ginger Beer

Posted on November 2, 2012 by anthonypickering

I have been away for a while due to work commitments to study. It is one of those odd things that happens. I have a 5 year plan and I don’t think I will use this diploma I just got at the end of that 5 year plan but the next 5 years it will be required to lead to the end of the 5 year plan (I think that makes sense)

Sadly you have to balance out the ‘what you want’ versus what it takes to get there. For me it is a balance but one I am aware of and try to manage. I do not want to get to the point where lied to myself so much thinking I can sell my present to do what I want in the future but neither do I want to car wreck the future by doing only what I want rather than what I have to do.

And also at the end of the day education is always a good thing. People should never stop learning formally or informally. To stop is to in a way to start the trip to death.

But enough of my musings. I have a lot to catch up on for everyone but I also want to spend the day in the garden so my balance for today is the short post below on brewing lacto ginger beer. Last year I did this and this year I am trying again and it is looking very promising with the starter brew smelling SO GOOD after a week of me helping mother nature make it.

To make the starter you need a clean sterilised large mouth jar. A cup and half to two cups of rain water (tap water is ok but boil it and leave 24 hours to get rid of any chlorination before using) . Add a tablespoon or so of grated peeled raw ginger. The amount depends on what you end up grating from the amount you peeled. No matter how much it is add an equal amount of sugar to it needs to be added. Cover opening of the jar with a piece of muslin cloth and rubber band.

Each day you add around the same amount of ginger and sugar and stir vigorously (I tend to swirl it once day as well) after a couple of days you should see bubbles forming and the lovely ginger beer smell will come of it.

It may take a bit longer as it depends what wild yeast is around and the conditions. This year has been great for wild yeast (as I discovered making elderflower cordial which is another story)

As with all my brewing but particularly when using a wild yeast process make sure you sanitise everything when I grate the ginger I pour boiling water over the grater and plate and leave for a minute or so and even pour it over the knife used to peel the ginger. I obviously make sure all of the spoon used to measure and add the ginger and sugar and the stir is clean and had had boiled water poured over it to clear.

I have a couple of more days of making the starter then I can make it up into beer and will post on that then.

Kids and Milk

Posted on October 16, 2012 by anthonypickering

So I still have to put up the bottling and pasteurization process of the first batch of the elderflower champagne. Work and life have been a bit busy so I am a bit behind on the posts. Sorry about that but I did warn you previously that I would live the life first and blog it second 🙂

So I thought I would at least drop a line having just missed my train on how things are going.

I am already into my second batch and the ale yeast is going great guns. Should be ready to bottle on Friday if not before. The morning and evening ritual of storing and smelling it, like my ritual of checking my seeds each evening helps to keep it all in perspective.

I also had to post this sign from my daughters crèche. Growing up with a milking cow at the house this is no biggie to me but for her this is great adventure. And I would have to say a positive thing for the kids to see. The dislocation of people from where their food comes from is a cause for many of the ills we see in our world so getting kids involved at such a young age is a great thing.

Have a great day all and smell the roses (or brew) when you can

The Olla Bed

Posted on October 12, 2012 by anthonypickering

About a year ago I built an Olla bed. For those of you not familiar olla are a low tech unglazed earthen ware containers used to provide water directly to the roots of a plant.

A much better article than I could ever write is found at

http://permaculturenews.org/2010/09/16/ollas-unglazed-clay-pots-for-garden-irrigation/

With summer just around the corner (despite the sudden cold snap) I thought I had better give a report on how it is doing.

My Olla are not so pretty being made of some old clay pipe I had access to and some pot bases. I Sanded them to remove any glaze and used silicon to bind it all together. Over the last summer they lasted really well requiring a single fill up of the three olla to last the week.

I also incorporated a mini worm farm into the bed that helps to keep up the worms in the beds and compost it.

As you can see the beds are thriving. Last summer almost all of our salad vegetables came from this one bath tub. I was sick and tired of plastic packets of salad vegetables costing me a fortune and going bad after about two days.

The bed requires very little work to keep the plants maintained and as you are feeding directly to the roots of the plant the amount of weeds has been very minimal. I have used seedlings for the most part planting them around the Olla and this seems to work best for me, the developed roots seem to find the water without much trouble. Direct seeds seem to go the way of the weeds and not do as well.

This year I will be adding some herbs and more leafy greens to the mix and seeing how much I can push the system and how long the reservoirs will last with the bed fully loaded.

In the next week or two I will drop a post on the build process I went through.

A bit of work for the urban hippie

Posted on October 7, 2012 by anthonypickering

Well it has been a busy weekend to say the least, lots done, lots still to do and there will be posts on that next week.

As I emptied the latest load of wood for the hugel bed I am building at the moment it is 11:00pm and I was wondering to myself why am I doing this again? I had just bottled 18 liters of elderflower champagne having finished sorting out an area for Andrea’s new bee hive all afternoon and finishing things in the garden.

All I wanted to do was collapse into bed.

I am reminded of the upbringing I had and how local farmers up country would work through the night as required. I remember my father getting up in lambing season and working as required dependent on the season.

Make hay while the sun shines is a fine old saying for this but it hides the fact that ‘work you guts out as it needs to be done’ is what it really says.

I enjoy the urban hippie lifestyle and I am/have been considering a life change to increase this. If this happens then this sort of thing will be the norm for me no doubt and it is something that I need to think about. I am sure I will go for it at the end of the day I but it is perhaps something to remember in the romantic dreams many have of simpler times and lives that there will be a lot of work to do.

At the end of the day I did get a very, very nice drop of elderflower champagne to while away my typing.

(yes I will post the bottling process tomorrow as part 3)

Have a great week all no matter what you are doing.

I am NOT an urban hippie

The rampant ramblings of someone trying to live a greenish life while seeing the world. From Melbourne Australia to the United Kingdom to the Netherlands this is a look at life as lived.

Category Archives: Self Reliance