Isn't it funny how life gets in the way. Before you know it, all your dreams and plans go on the backburner because you need to attend to more pressing issues....such as surviving life with four active kids. You go into survival mode and cover the basic necessities - food, shelter, school, work, footy, dance, and if you're lucky, sleep and rest. And the occasional mowing and whipper snipping of the yard to reassure neighbours that the zombie apocalypse has not yet commenced, you are indeed alive and the house is still habitable.
But in the process, if you haven't been careful, you start to realise that you no longer do anything just for you. Something that relates to you and only you. All those things that you like to do - yoga, gardening, writing, reading, being creative - get squished out as other activities like housework and footy and dance and karate take precedence. Unfortunately there are only so many hours in the day in which to cram everything in. Don't get me wrong, I love that my kids are so active, but where is the time for me? When do I get to do what I want to do?
This year is a significant birthday milestone for me. At my last significant birthday I had a mini freak out as I felt that I had not achieved everything I set out to achieve by that time. I considered myself a failure - what had my life become? I compared myself to where everybody else was at that time (big mistake I know, but they were all gallivanting around Europe and I was at home with two toddlers so of course it seemed more glamorous!). I was unsure of myself, I was unhealthy and I was unhappy. I was a smart intelligent woman but I felt trapped by circumstance and I became resentful of everything and everyone. I vowed to myself that I was not going to feel the same way at my next milestone birthday. So in the past 10 years, I have consciously made the effort to travel more, I have attained my Masters degree, I have got myself back in the workforce, I commenced this blog, I have started and stopped yoga more times than I can remember, I completed a solo overseas trip and walked up a volcano, and in the past couple of years tried very hard at improving my stress levels, overall health, fitness and strength. I have been trying to find me again.
Approaching this next milestone birthday I feel I have begun to become more comfortable with me. I have come to recognise that I am a chronic negative self-talker and I need to stop. I have come to terms with the fact that I am a natural introvert and putting myself out there to be more extroverted is exhausting for me, and if I don't recover and recharge with alone time, I become sick, stressed out and not a very nice person to be around. I am also starting to find my voice and say 'no'. I am gradually starting to 'let go' of some things and get the others who live in this house to assist with jobs - they don't do it the way I do it, but I have to let that go if I want it done. In the past week I have begun meditating - more out of curiosity's sake than anything else - but already I feel as though creative thoughts are being to creep back in. Like a hidden treasure chest with a creaky lid, I am beginning to dust off the cobwebs and am starting to find me again.
It is my plan this year to start working towards some new goals that I have been considering for a while, but because of circumstances, and little Miss Negative Self-talk, I keep putting off. Life is too short and I would much rather say 'Remember when I....' rather than 'I wonder what would have happened if I had done...'. To begin, this year hubby and I will be ticking off Number 1 on my bucket list...trekking the Incan Trail to Macchu Picchu in Peru! I'm so excited I can't wait!
Its currently raining, complete with a thunder and lightening show, and the smell is amazing (I'm going to ignore the fact that I spent three hours this afternoon moving the sprinkler every 15mins to give the veggie garden a good watering! - but I digress - maintain positive thoughts - focus!). Although it's intense, after a while it passes, everything cools down, and the calm returns. Much like my life, I know that I will have time for me again, I've just got to keep a hold onto 'me' until it passes.
Showing posts with label Views. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Views. Show all posts
Tuesday, 23 January 2018
Saturday, 26 May 2012
What has been going on in our little world
So much has been happening, so much is being planned, so much has been about daydreaming and plans for the future, so much swirling around in my head. Rather than blog each individually I am going to do a summary of what has been going on in our world.
What has been started...
Our fireplace!! Woo hoo!! Although the near freezing daytime temperatures here at the moment would lean perfectly toward a red in front of a blazing fire...I shall have to wait a little longer...but maybe only about a week!
Here is the base!
Hubby has started home brewing and has done two batches so far - a pale ale and a Kilkenny-style beer. The bottling of the first batch started off horribly (faulty tap, beer all over the floor and walls, and free ranging chickens INSIDE the house with crazy screaming kids while we are trying to clean it all up!). We are bottling the second batch tonight - chicken and child free - fingers crossed.
As Miss 5yo is off to school next year and the twins will be starting preschool, I have decided to head back to study with the aim of maybe becoming a teacher. Ultimately I would like to work with teaching kids how to grow and cook their own food, and maybe even work with the Stephanie Alexander program in the future. Definitely a work in progress with even a permaculture design course or horticulture course thrown in as well. Hmmm...'cause the prospect of free time with the kids at school just seemed downright quiet and boring!
My first attempt at making 'weed tea' fertiliser. Its very smelly so I am not sure I am doing it right. Need to put some fresh weeds in again and do more research on what it is supposed to look like. Have ambitions to spray this across our block to hopefully aid in soil conditioning. I can only try.
What I have been collecting...
Free Poo! I finally got around to placing a 'Wanted: Free Poo' sign up at the local Murrumbateman noticeboard in the hope that some nice farmer would allow us to come and collect some free sheep/cow poo for our compost and veggie gardens. Someone rang! So last weekend we went around and collected some free alpaca poo and have placed it in the compost to break down.
What is being planned...
Sheep! Although my Dad has warned me away from them as they can be too much work, we are definitely in the process of turning our front area into Paddock 1, and in time when the fruit trees grow a little more, creating Paddock 2 up the back. My plan is to rotate the sheep through the two paddocks as lawn mowers but also to fertilise and condition the soil. They are not going to be named. Which means, yes, our plan is to kill them for meat. A lot of our friends are betting that we can't do it. I think we can. At this stage I would like to try and prepare the soil better (maybe through some liquid weed/compost tea fertiliser), plus plant some shade trees, and obviously build some fences. I have also been mulling over ideas for a movable sheep shelter (similar to a chook tractor concept) to move to whichever paddock the sheep are in. Nothing concrete yet.
I want some with black faces!
A cellar (or root cellar or larder). We have been considering building a 'pool house' (certainly NOT a second dwelling and hence double the rates, Mr Local Council Inspectors), which potentially a cellar underneath to store beer, wine and produce in more climate controlled conditions. We recently received a quote back from a builder - ridiculously expensive - so the planning and alternatives are shelved still being explored.
Collecting fallen leaves to attempt to make some leaf mould. I have been watching the trees at the recreation grounds and their leaves are starting to turn so it won't be long before the kiddies and I are out with the rakes.
What I have been attending...
I attended the monthly Urban Homesteader's Club last weekend, which was a Soup Swap. I love going to these meetings and speaking with like minded, passionate people. I always come away with so many ideas and suggestions and knowledge swirling around in my head. My latest ploy is to send hubby fishing for some carp to plant under my fruit trees.
What I have been reading...
'Folks, this Ain't Normal' by Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm. Been having a lot of 'Yes!' moments and thinking more about applying some principles to our little piece of dirt. About to read 'The Guernsey and Literary Potato Peel Pie Society' by Mary Anne Shaffer for Book Club.
Hubby has been reading about the health benefits and medicinal applications of honey. I hope the kids and I don't cut or graze ourselves too bad in the near future as I think we are definitely going to be lathered in honey!
What I am cooking...
I have sort of got back on my little 'chemicals are bad' bandwagon and I have been trying to cook more things from scratch. A little while ago I blogged about the frozen pastry I used to buy for my quiche and a nice reader called Jess suggested that I try Maggie Beer's sour cream pastry recipe. Well I have and it is really bloody easy!! I switched the white flour for wholemeal flour (kids can't tell the difference hee hee!). I have made it a few times now and I won't be going back to store bought pastry.
I have also been making the Taco Seasoning Recipe from Picklebum's 'Cooking from Scratch' series. Apart from a little heavy handedness with the chilli powder the first time, again really easy, and the kids have adjusted just fine. I have also started to use our own homemade tomato sauce with a few modifications for the taco sauce. Again no complaint from the kiddies.
Although I have yet to make a proper loaf of bread (I have all the ingredients and the loaf pan but just haven't done it), I have been making bread rolls for burgers and accompliments to soups. Miss 7yo actually prefers my rolls (yay! Big internal fist pump!).
After reading 'Sweet Poison' by David Gillespie, I have endeavoured to cut out white flour and as much sugar from our diets as possible. I have been cooking with wholemeal flour and honey and the kids are still happy. Actually they can't even tell the difference. Now I know that honey is a liquid form of sugar, but it is lower in fructose than normal sugar and hopefully we will have an abundance of it that I can use for free!
What I am daydreaming about....
Free ranging pigs on our block. And ducks on a pond that I don't have. Growing an experimental patch of wheat. Where I can fit a big potato patch to grow enough to last us through winter next year. Our first lot of honey from our bees. When it will be warm enough to go for a swim again.
How cute do they look!
Wednesday, 16 May 2012
New Years Resolution - Run 10km Event - CHECK!
Well - I did it!!!
Early Sunday morning, in absolutely FREEZING Canberra weather conditions, I ran the 10km Mothers Day Classic around Lake Burley Griffin - in 58mins and 30 secs - woohoo! under an hour!
It has taken me a couple of days to get over the stiffness - damn ageing body! - but I am so glad a friend convinced me to change from the 5km to 10km.
Run in at least one 10km event - looking at either Mothers Day Classic (May) or try again for Canberra Fun Run (September). Anyone up for it? :-)DONE!
Feels good to achieve something on your New Years resolutions list :)
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Future Food Security - will we still have ours?
Sometimes I just stop and wonder what is really going to happen to this world in the next 30-50 years.
Will I still be able to do this?
I stumbled upon some articles about a New Zealand Food Bill, which "will essentially transfer primary control of food from individuals to corporations under the guise of food security"..."it will also make it illegal to distribute any type of foods based on the bill's language...includes seeds, nutrients, natural medicines, minerals and even water, without expressed government permission".
The article claims that if this bill is passed, it will strip individuals of their right to grow food and preserve the bounty, save seeds and even share produce with friends and family members. The fight is being taken up by the group New Zealand Food Security and you can read more about it here. These are the main two links I have found about this issue, but if what they report is true, could you imagine that happening here in Australia? Not being able to grow a bit of lettuce or some potatoes or herbs to feed your family, or worse, growing them and having them confiscated by 'officials'. But when you stand back, you can see the real reason why they are attempting to introduce this bill - they cannot collect taxes or make money out of people growing their own food and saving seeds to reuse again the following year - can they? Where is the profit in that? But if people are forced to do so with 'government permission' - read regulations, licences and therefore $$$$ - then that is ok because the government and corporations who produce seed, will still be able to make a profit. And really, thats what life is all about isn't it - making a profit - not nutritious whole foods to ensure the survival of humanity.
This has linked into a book that I am reading at the moment, 'The Great Disruption' by Paul Gilding, where he talks about the end of economic growth and climate change combining to form the great disruption to society and life as we know it. He talks about how we cannot continue to think in terms of continued growth at the expense of depleting the scarcity of earth's resources. I am about halfway through the book, but I am having a lot of 'light bulb' and 'a-ha' moments as I work my way through. Seeing this story panning out in New Zeland reaffirms for me some of the topics in the book.
I have never in the past been part of an active protest before, but by golly I would be involved if any legislation were ever to be introduced here.
We would probably have to dis-band the Urban Homesteaders Club - imagine that!
Anyway - thats my rant for today! Read the links have a think about the future, I know I am.
(as an aside, I previously blogged about wanting a fireplace to keep warm. Its funny how the universe works sometimes, but the day after I posted that blog, some things happened for us and we are now able to put our fireplace in! I'm very excited! Just awaiting council approval now)
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
My disappointment at the absolute farce that is food labelling
The other day I was contemplating the blissful existence that is summer and preparing food that has come straight from the garden - food metres as opposed to food miles. I was making quiche for dinner, with eggs, parsley and onions all from the garden with a garden salad (sadly with *gasp* bought tomatoes as we don't have any yet!).
As I am a busy mum of four young kidlets between the ages of seven and two, I am woman enough to admit I take shortcuts to get dinner on the table. The shortcut for me with the meal in question is pastry. I can't make it. Tried and it was so disgusting we all gagged and I think the chooks even gagged when it was delivered as part of their scraps!
Anyway, I have been a bit lax in reading all the food labels lately, but for some reason, on this blissfully sunny summer day I decided to take a look at the list for the pastry.
Previously I have just glanced at the back but this is what I saw:
'No added colours, preservatives or flavourings' . 'Product of Australia'. 'Australian Made'.
Well that's pretty good I thought. If I can't cook it from scratch, at least there are no baddies in it and I'm buying Australian made.
Tsk Tsk. How wrong I was!
As I started reading the actual ingredients list, part of the list contained:
'emulsifiers (471, soy lecithin, flavour, food acid (330), antioxidant (320), colour (160a)'
Hang on a bloody sec. Didn't I just read no added colours, preservatives or flavourings???? 'Cause, to me - a mum who admittedly has not reclaimed all the lost grey matter from repeated 'baby brain' episodes - that list just read as if there are colours, preservatives and flavours added to this product!
As there were a few numbers, I consulted my 'bible' on this stuff, 'The Chemical Maze' by Bill Statham which lists all the numbers that you see on the back of food items and many common personal items, as well as common side affects of these and whether good, bad or downright ugly nasty little critters.
According to the book,
471 = Mono & Diglycerides of fatty acids :-) :-)
330 = Citric Acid :l
320 = Butylated Hydroxyanisole :( :( - petroleum derivative!!!!!! Gastrointestinal, liver, endocrine, immuno and neurotoxicity!!!!! Carcinogenic!!!!!! WTF!!!!!!!
160a = Carotene - orange/red colour :) :)
OK the zillion exclamation marks and WTF are mine, but really, how can our food labelling laws be so poor that a company can legally state there are no added bits and pieces when clearly, there are.
Now that I have discovered what is going on, I feel a bit like the bunt of a joke. Like someone who has just found out that the joke has been on them for the last several years and they have only just wised up to the fact! That large corporations are mocking me, the mum who endeavours to put a home cooked meal on the table that is not only nutritious, but one that also has the chance to be eaten by the little kidlets, only to have petroleum derived ingredients added to it!
It downright pisses me off.
And the worst thing is, I buy this pastry in bulk and I have an unopened packet still in the freezer. I can't now feed it to my kids knowing what I now know is in it but what on earth am I going to do with it? What was once an easy, recipe-in-the-head, make-blindfolded-and-in-a-hurry type meal, has now become a longer tasking chore that may well be scrapped off the menu plan for a little while.
I am annoyed that labelling laws in Australia allow this to happen and that the powers that be believe petroleum derived carcinogenic additives have ANY place in foodstuffs!
And lets not get me started on labelling for organic/natural/green washing products vs true certified organic products, GMO's, what is ACTUALLY local and imported, and listing ALL ingredients on the ingredients list and not just those greater than 1%.
I strongly encourage all to read your ingredient labels and if there are any numbers in the ingredients list - check them out! It might be something you weren't expecting.
As I am a busy mum of four young kidlets between the ages of seven and two, I am woman enough to admit I take shortcuts to get dinner on the table. The shortcut for me with the meal in question is pastry. I can't make it. Tried and it was so disgusting we all gagged and I think the chooks even gagged when it was delivered as part of their scraps!
Anyway, I have been a bit lax in reading all the food labels lately, but for some reason, on this blissfully sunny summer day I decided to take a look at the list for the pastry.
Previously I have just glanced at the back but this is what I saw:
'No added colours, preservatives or flavourings' . 'Product of Australia'. 'Australian Made'.
Well that's pretty good I thought. If I can't cook it from scratch, at least there are no baddies in it and I'm buying Australian made.
Tsk Tsk. How wrong I was!
As I started reading the actual ingredients list, part of the list contained:
'emulsifiers (471, soy lecithin, flavour, food acid (330), antioxidant (320), colour (160a)'
Hang on a bloody sec. Didn't I just read no added colours, preservatives or flavourings???? 'Cause, to me - a mum who admittedly has not reclaimed all the lost grey matter from repeated 'baby brain' episodes - that list just read as if there are colours, preservatives and flavours added to this product!
As there were a few numbers, I consulted my 'bible' on this stuff, 'The Chemical Maze' by Bill Statham which lists all the numbers that you see on the back of food items and many common personal items, as well as common side affects of these and whether good, bad or downright ugly nasty little critters.
According to the book,
471 = Mono & Diglycerides of fatty acids :-) :-)
330 = Citric Acid :l
320 = Butylated Hydroxyanisole :( :( - petroleum derivative!!!!!! Gastrointestinal, liver, endocrine, immuno and neurotoxicity!!!!! Carcinogenic!!!!!! WTF!!!!!!!
160a = Carotene - orange/red colour :) :)
OK the zillion exclamation marks and WTF are mine, but really, how can our food labelling laws be so poor that a company can legally state there are no added bits and pieces when clearly, there are.
Now that I have discovered what is going on, I feel a bit like the bunt of a joke. Like someone who has just found out that the joke has been on them for the last several years and they have only just wised up to the fact! That large corporations are mocking me, the mum who endeavours to put a home cooked meal on the table that is not only nutritious, but one that also has the chance to be eaten by the little kidlets, only to have petroleum derived ingredients added to it!
It downright pisses me off.
And the worst thing is, I buy this pastry in bulk and I have an unopened packet still in the freezer. I can't now feed it to my kids knowing what I now know is in it but what on earth am I going to do with it? What was once an easy, recipe-in-the-head, make-blindfolded-and-in-a-hurry type meal, has now become a longer tasking chore that may well be scrapped off the menu plan for a little while.
I am annoyed that labelling laws in Australia allow this to happen and that the powers that be believe petroleum derived carcinogenic additives have ANY place in foodstuffs!
And lets not get me started on labelling for organic/natural/green washing products vs true certified organic products, GMO's, what is ACTUALLY local and imported, and listing ALL ingredients on the ingredients list and not just those greater than 1%.
I strongly encourage all to read your ingredient labels and if there are any numbers in the ingredients list - check them out! It might be something you weren't expecting.
Thursday, 27 October 2011
'I can feel it in me waters...'
to quote the affable Kath off the 'Kath & Kim' TV series.
Such a long time between posts, I know, but time has been flying and I have been thinking. A lot. About life, kids, stuff and self sustainability. I don't normally have the time to think deeply about issues as I am normally over consumed with the ever persistent 'Mum! Mum! M.U.M.!', but I have been lately. And it has been consuming more and more of my waking time.
There is change in the air...I can feel it. And I know that I am not the only one. Defining or pinpointing the change is hard, but I have this inner drive to succeed in providing the essentials for life - food, water, shelter, warmth - if by chance we could no longer acquire these from an external source. My first and foremost priority is to keep my kids happy, warm and safe, but I have been asking the really hard question of myself lately - if push came to shove, could I really do this?
To take a step back in time, it all started in the oddest of places really. After channel surfing free-to-air TV on a Saturday night some months ago (and we all know how dismal that can be) I tuned in to watch 'The Day After Tomorrow'. For those who also have a similar boring life existence to sit through that movie - bare with me for a sec - but for those that actually have a life, its the movie that basically has these major storms colliding, creating massive tsunamis, and then massive freezing temperatures and heaps of people get caught out and die. Yadda Yadda Yadda. Anyway, there is a scene towards the end where the freezing temperatures are encroaching on our band of heroes, as they struggle to keep the fire alight in the massive library fireplace by burning a huge array of texts and bound books. And it hit me. We don't have a fireplace and we have no way of keeping warm in an electrical blackout. Or some other freak act of nature. Or chronically expensive electricity prices that are beyond the average family's ability to pay.
This is bad, especially out here in Murrumbateman, where we have had more than our fair share of sub -5C temps this winter, as my struggling reverse cycle heater will attest. But this is really an issue for me. Skyrocketing electricity prices aside, I have no way of keeping my four little kiddies warm and snug and happy.
And then I started to think more about self sufficiency. I have bandied the 'self- sufficient' term about a bit I admit it, but when you really think about it, being 'self sufficient' is not buying anything really. If you are 'self sufficient' you don't have to. You can barter/exchange but essentially you don't have to visit the supermarket. Ever.
I am SO not self sufficient.
Could I feed my family if for some reason or another our lives depended on it? Well, if that were the case, this is all we would have eaten for the past week
Although lovely and healthy and packed full of vitamins and grown organically from our garden...its not enough to feed all 6 of us. OK I do have a lot of lettuce and herbs in the garden as well, but I still don't feel that its enough. I seriously need to lift my game.
I have also been reading with interest Greening of Gavin's blog and his posts on Suburban Retrofit , and post peak oil, energy descent and things to consider.
I highly recommend you read it and I am not going to re-hash it here, but I guess if TSHTF we have our own water supply (tank water), our own septic, we have a small solar system but we could always convert that to off the grid if need be, we have a wood fired oven and we have a firepit area where we could cook 'camp style' if no gas and no electricity (recently found out in a power outage that my gas cooktop stove needs both gas AND electricity to run!). We have our veggie gardens and fruit trees and we have our greenhouse to grow food all year round. We have our chooky girls to lay us eggs. We do have the space to run few animals such as lambs or goats but I am not going to go there just yet. But still we have no way to keep warm......
So maybe its not as all bad as I think it might be. I have cleaned out the pantry and am starting to store more flour and rice and essentials ...just in case. I am going to try and pick up my game with preserving this summer (if I can fight the cockatoos off for our fruit harvest) and I am going to go through and re-do our budget to see if that fire can become a reality before next winter.
*Sigh* So is it just me thinking about these things? Should I just get me some 12-odd stray cats, let my hair go wild and grey and be known as the crazy cat woman up on the hill?
OK, you really don't have to answer that last question :)
Such a long time between posts, I know, but time has been flying and I have been thinking. A lot. About life, kids, stuff and self sustainability. I don't normally have the time to think deeply about issues as I am normally over consumed with the ever persistent 'Mum! Mum! M.U.M.!', but I have been lately. And it has been consuming more and more of my waking time.
There is change in the air...I can feel it. And I know that I am not the only one. Defining or pinpointing the change is hard, but I have this inner drive to succeed in providing the essentials for life - food, water, shelter, warmth - if by chance we could no longer acquire these from an external source. My first and foremost priority is to keep my kids happy, warm and safe, but I have been asking the really hard question of myself lately - if push came to shove, could I really do this?
To take a step back in time, it all started in the oddest of places really. After channel surfing free-to-air TV on a Saturday night some months ago (and we all know how dismal that can be) I tuned in to watch 'The Day After Tomorrow'. For those who also have a similar boring life existence to sit through that movie - bare with me for a sec - but for those that actually have a life, its the movie that basically has these major storms colliding, creating massive tsunamis, and then massive freezing temperatures and heaps of people get caught out and die. Yadda Yadda Yadda. Anyway, there is a scene towards the end where the freezing temperatures are encroaching on our band of heroes, as they struggle to keep the fire alight in the massive library fireplace by burning a huge array of texts and bound books. And it hit me. We don't have a fireplace and we have no way of keeping warm in an electrical blackout. Or some other freak act of nature. Or chronically expensive electricity prices that are beyond the average family's ability to pay.
This is bad, especially out here in Murrumbateman, where we have had more than our fair share of sub -5C temps this winter, as my struggling reverse cycle heater will attest. But this is really an issue for me. Skyrocketing electricity prices aside, I have no way of keeping my four little kiddies warm and snug and happy.
And then I started to think more about self sufficiency. I have bandied the 'self- sufficient' term about a bit I admit it, but when you really think about it, being 'self sufficient' is not buying anything really. If you are 'self sufficient' you don't have to. You can barter/exchange but essentially you don't have to visit the supermarket. Ever.
I am SO not self sufficient.
Could I feed my family if for some reason or another our lives depended on it? Well, if that were the case, this is all we would have eaten for the past week
I have also been reading with interest Greening of Gavin's blog and his posts on Suburban Retrofit , and post peak oil, energy descent and things to consider.
I highly recommend you read it and I am not going to re-hash it here, but I guess if TSHTF we have our own water supply (tank water), our own septic, we have a small solar system but we could always convert that to off the grid if need be, we have a wood fired oven and we have a firepit area where we could cook 'camp style' if no gas and no electricity (recently found out in a power outage that my gas cooktop stove needs both gas AND electricity to run!). We have our veggie gardens and fruit trees and we have our greenhouse to grow food all year round. We have our chooky girls to lay us eggs. We do have the space to run few animals such as lambs or goats but I am not going to go there just yet. But still we have no way to keep warm......
So maybe its not as all bad as I think it might be. I have cleaned out the pantry and am starting to store more flour and rice and essentials ...just in case. I am going to try and pick up my game with preserving this summer (if I can fight the cockatoos off for our fruit harvest) and I am going to go through and re-do our budget to see if that fire can become a reality before next winter.
*Sigh* So is it just me thinking about these things? Should I just get me some 12-odd stray cats, let my hair go wild and grey and be known as the crazy cat woman up on the hill?
OK, you really don't have to answer that last question :)
Wednesday, 14 September 2011
The Canvas
The story so far.....
We live in an absolutely beautiful part of Australia, in between Yass and Canberra in the south eastern part of New South Wales, smack bang in the middle of award winning cool climate wine country (that wasn't by accident either!). Our little oasis is the hamlet of Murrumbateman.
How we came to be living here is not really much of a story but rather a snapshot on how major decisions are usually made in our household.
After living all over the country and moving house more times than we can remember, returning home to Canberra from a weekend away we spied a sign to a land sale, followed the signs to have a look, called the Agent on the spot and voila! We were going to be fully fledged land owners!
It wasn't just a spur of the moment decision, we actually had been discussing finding a place of our own for quite a while (we had been renting up until this point). We wanted some space to grow some veggies like we both did as kids, and also for our kids to have space to run around and kick a footy, and play, yell and scream at the top of their lungs without having to worry about what the neighbour six houses over might complain about. But the crunch really came when we discovered the trampoline we bought the kids wasn't actually going to fit in the backyard. And if we did manage to put a swing set in (which wouldn't fit with the trampoline, it would have to be one or the other) the kids would touch the house going forward and hit the fence on the swing back. This was just not going to do.
So three years on, considerable stress of building and moving house whilst pregnant with twins over, we are gradually realising our dreams of living on our little acreage. After initially just wanting to grow veggies, this move has turned out to be so much more, and has opened our eyes beyond what we thought was being good environmental citizens such as being a good recycler and trying to grow some herbs in pots, to attempting to grow all (OK well a large proportion of it anyway!) fruit and veggies, installing solar panels, living solely off tank water, reducing chemicals in our household, building and using a greenhouse, planting plants for a purpose rather than planting them 'just because' and being more frugal and more conscious of our purchases rather than just doing what we had always done...because that's just the way we did things! We are now even looking at keeping bees!
Hope you find our travels to 'somewhat' sustainability useful!
MM xo
How we came to be living here is not really much of a story but rather a snapshot on how major decisions are usually made in our household.
After living all over the country and moving house more times than we can remember, returning home to Canberra from a weekend away we spied a sign to a land sale, followed the signs to have a look, called the Agent on the spot and voila! We were going to be fully fledged land owners!
It wasn't just a spur of the moment decision, we actually had been discussing finding a place of our own for quite a while (we had been renting up until this point). We wanted some space to grow some veggies like we both did as kids, and also for our kids to have space to run around and kick a footy, and play, yell and scream at the top of their lungs without having to worry about what the neighbour six houses over might complain about. But the crunch really came when we discovered the trampoline we bought the kids wasn't actually going to fit in the backyard. And if we did manage to put a swing set in (which wouldn't fit with the trampoline, it would have to be one or the other) the kids would touch the house going forward and hit the fence on the swing back. This was just not going to do.
So three years on, considerable stress of building and moving house whilst pregnant with twins over, we are gradually realising our dreams of living on our little acreage. After initially just wanting to grow veggies, this move has turned out to be so much more, and has opened our eyes beyond what we thought was being good environmental citizens such as being a good recycler and trying to grow some herbs in pots, to attempting to grow all (OK well a large proportion of it anyway!) fruit and veggies, installing solar panels, living solely off tank water, reducing chemicals in our household, building and using a greenhouse, planting plants for a purpose rather than planting them 'just because' and being more frugal and more conscious of our purchases rather than just doing what we had always done...because that's just the way we did things! We are now even looking at keeping bees!
Hope you find our travels to 'somewhat' sustainability useful!
MM xo
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