Back to school

Unbelievably, the school holidays are over.  My boys have gone back to school this morning as Grade 2s.  Its going to be a great year for them, I can feel it.

First day of grade 2

I know some parents are thrilled that the school year has begun - those summer holidays can feel very long!  But for me and the boys, it is with mixed feelings that we start another year.  Part of me is thrilled to have them off to learn more, to not have to drag them off to do the jobs that are part of my week, and to have the peaceful hours in the day without the occasional bickering and the constant run of mess that they leave as a trail behind them.  But the other part of me will really miss having them home.  I love having them home to come and eat lunch with me and I've thoroughly enjoyed having my one day in town for shopping and jobs broken up by visits to the skate park or a scooter ride/walk along the foreshore and visits to the library to choose a pile of books together.  And for their part, they will miss lazy mornings when they haven't had to get dressed till 10am, and being able to come and chat with me, and time to explore, play and just be, enjoying the precious twin time that they spend together - brothers and best friends.

A beautiful place to walk on shopping day

But, as we're not homeschoolers, it is back to school for us and back to our regular routines. and today, that routine for me includes hours of mundane office work (blah!). and a big batch of cooking for Stu to take to share with his (new) workmates tomorrow. He feels guilty leaving me to cook for his turn at supplying morning tea, but that's ok. Honestly, I feel guilty that I get to stay home and cook while he goes to sit in an office all day.!

School holiday strawberry picking fun

Fresh strwaberries are the best!

I haven't blogged much over the last few weeks, school holidays does that, but there is so much going on around here that I have been busting to share!

Firstly, we have put our deposit on our solar power system! With a bit if luck, we'll be making our own power by the end of the summer. It will be amazing to have no (or very small) power bills, and to think, we have the gut-wrenching experience of Stu being made redundant to thank for it....

Our second big news is that we've booked an overseas holiday for later in the year. We are thrilled to be able to take the boys to Bali with us to experience another culture, and I'm really enjoying working out how to have a culturally enriching, environmentally OK holiday. I'm also loving relearning bahasa Indonesia (which I studied at school and uni) and teaching the family a bit too.

And our third piece of exciting news (you guys are going to love this one) is that we're getting goats! I have finally nutted out a plan and twisted Stu's arm into agreeing. I've also found a breeder close by who we'll buy from. We will get a couple of mini goats who will produce just the right amount of milk to keep us in dairy products 9 months of the year.

It's all just too exciting! I knew this was going to be our year.

I'm hoping to be back to more regular blogging now, so I should be back real soon.

I hope all of your days (extreme weather aside) have been grin worthy too.

Simplifying the linen cupboard

There was a time, not so long ago, when I was sure I needed new towels and sheets. I shopped for them, but didn't find anything in my budget that I was happy with, so didn't buy anything. Now I'm really pleased I didn't.

As part of our decluttering this month, I've given the linen cupboard an overhaul, and a whole new look. It seems that I didn't need new linens at all, but actually needed less! We had a linen cupboard full to bursting with things - ridiculous quantities of towels, numerous sets of linen for each bed and piles of beach towels. There are also a small amount of tablecloths and napkins. There were so many things in there that I couldn't find what I needed and had that sense that people often feel about their wardrobes "so many clothes but nothing to wear". So I've given it all a good clean out and am much happier now!

In the bed linen shelves, I have one change of linen (doona cover, fitted sheet and pillowcases) for each of our three beds, and for winter, flannelette sheets and hot water bottles. I threw a few sheets from our sets to the rag pile a while back as they had started to pill and fray. Now I have just the right number of sheets and doona covers for us, and will only replace when more become damaged (and then I will be buying quality organic cotton/bamboo sheets). From the boys linen, we cleared out linen printed with preschool pictures and sent them to the opshop, and they were short a couple of fitted sheets but had a pile of unused flat sheets, so they've gone to my sewing pile for conversion (I learnt to convert flat to fitted a few years ago - so easy and makes sheet sets better value for those of us who don't use flat sheets).

More preschool printed bath towels joined the sheets in the opshop pile, as did a couple of tablecloths.

Our bath towel shelf was the worst. For our wedding (11 years ago), we were given about six full sets of towels! Many if these sat unwrapped until the boys came along 8 years ago, then we used them as baby towels. Since then we've been given more towels (why? Are we that hard to buy for?). So there were simply an insane number of towels in the cupboard - all used, but only one was fraying, and only a little bit. A few odds and ends of towels in weird colours and with stains were donated to a friend of ours who is a wildlife officer. Then the boys and I selected 2 sets of towels, a few changes of hand towels and bath mats and a set of guest towels. The guest towels were put aside in a box (so they don't get muddled) and the others fit neatly on the shelf. All the rest of the towels have been folded and will be put into storage. The plan is that the towels in the cupboard will last us for sometime yet, and when they eventually get retired to the rag pile, we will 'shop' for 'new' towels from our stores.

It's just a linen cupboard, but I feel so much more in control of the contents now, and pleased from an economic and environmental perspective that it will be some years before we need to buy anymore linens.

Our life less ordinary

If someone had asked me ten years ago, what I would do with a weekend in 2013, I don't know what I would have told them. I probably would have predicted spending it with Stu - right. I might have hoped I would have a couple of kids in tow - right again (though I would not have predicted the identical twin boys I ended up with!). But as for the rest....? What I do know is that there is NO WAY I would have predicted the list of things I've been up to with my little family this weekend!

Friday saw me planting out some more seeds in my vegie garden, hanging out with the kids at home and studying the new fitness program I'll be teaching next term. That night, we met Stu in Warrnambool to work on our tiny school's fabulous, parent run, pancake stall at the night markets. We worked really hard, but it was so much fun!

Saturday morning found us in the garden fixing a gate to stop our over friendly chooks camping on the back door step (and possibly being hurt by the dogs). Mum stopped in to say hi, then later, in the spirit of tiny towns, one of our friends and neighbours dropped in for a cuppa. We emptied our waterless toilet and made some adjustments, and spent some family time discussing the possibility of getting a milking goat, and debating the best solar power option.

That night, after a homemade curry packed with homegrown veg, I dressed up in a belly baring costume, did my hair, put on too much makeup and went to a local restaurant. It was completely booked out, and I was there to belly dance.... people really enjoyed watching me (and my dance buddy) performing the dances I had choreographed.... AND I got paid for doing it!  Can you believe that?!

A job as a belly dancer? !  I never would have guessed that one!

After dancing, I came home to a peaceful home (it was screen free Saturday of course) and cooled down with a homemade apple cider, hanging out with Stu and our books for a quiet night.

Early this morning, I was out and about with Stu for a run - yep, a run! Stu is helping build up my running stamina. Once I was spent, I was home for some yoga before breakfast.

The rest of the morning was spent processing three of our home raised chickens for the freezer - a job that, while not exactly pleasant, was surprisingly satisfying and not as horrible as either of us expected it to be.

This afternoon, I have watched brand new chickens hatch, completed paperwork for this terms belly dance classes, crocheted a small gift and baked bread for the next couple of days. And while I was doing that, Stu was working on the belly dance website and the kids were enjoying their favourite thing - time together at home to just play.



Hatchlings!  Six hatched and at least two more on the way!

I'm exhausted! But would I change a thing? No way! And I would love to know what I'll be up to 10 years from now.



Why we do it

I am in the process of writing a blog post on my linen cupboard declutter. Now I know that sounds too exciting for words ;-) but I'm going to hold it off for just a little while so I can share something with you.

Linda, a regular reader here, writes a blog too. It's a great blog always, but this morning, her post was exceptional. I agree completely with everything she said, and following on from my last post, it seems so perfect and worth sharing. So please, in the interest of "talking about our changes", head on over to Linda's blog and have a read.

http://greenhavengoodlife.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/fear.html?m=0

Thanks Linda.

Talking about making a difference

As we watch on the fire maps, a country is gripped in a heat wave and fires rage through. Mother Nature is thrashing and complaining again. She does that a lot these days. Like a toddler, she throws tantrum after tantrum.  Wherever you are in the world, you will have seen some of these disasters.  It's normal to have a tantrum sometimes, but when they are so frequent and so violent, something is wrong, something needs to be changed or the tantrums will only get worse.

Bushfires blazing about 200km from here, but close to some of my family.
Image from here

When we're given these natural disasters, our first instinct is to fight. Again, the toddler analogy works - as parents our first instinct with a naughty child is to yell at them and fight back. But all of you who have survived toddlers know that, in fact, the best option is to to be more gentle, to hunt for the triggers and to try to make life less stressful for your little one. And so with Mother Nature, her tantrums are telling us that life on earth is too stressful for her, she needs a break! And as the guardians of Earth, it's up to us to give her that break.

But how? The job feels too huge for our family or yours. But maybe it isn't. Every little thing we do to strive to help the Earth helps. If you turn off an appliance at the switch today, you've helped. If you buy less rubbish or reuse an item, you've helped. If you do a string of little things, you've helped quite a bit and if you can manage big things like going solar for your power or not driving your car, you've made an even bigger difference.

But the best way to make a difference is something I've learnt by accident over the last couple of months, and it struck home yesterday. You see I'd started to comment on the Grass Roots magazine Facebook page. Interesting conversations come up and I jump in to talk about things like cloth pads/menstrual cups, wee wipes, green Christmas ideas etc. And then I found out that all of my other Facebook friends can see these comments (oh the lack of privacy on Facebook is just scary!). I was pretty embarrassed. It is one thing to write on this blog or tell GR magazine about my use of these things, but I was mortified that all my work friends, school mates, belly dance colleagues, family and other friends now could know too! But then something amazing happened - a friend who had seen one of my comments asked to know more. We had a long and detailed (and not at all embarrassed) conversation about menstrual cups and now she is planning to get one for her and one for her daughter!  So now my changes to greener choices have not only reduced the amount of waste I produce, but have multiplied to much greater amounts than I alone could do. I've also noticed my family is starting to make a few changes after seeing our changes; people ask me about our solar hot water or our waterless toilet; people tell me that they think of me when they go to buy a disposable item, and you, my dear handful if readers, tell me that you are trying some of the things I talk about here.

So what is the best thing we can do to help our poor planet? We can talk about ways to help it!  We make little changes, then tell our friends and family about them and how easy they are and help them to make little changes too.  Then, maybe they'll tell someone, who will tell someone else,etc etc. A butterfly effect might just happen and together, our tiny efforts will become something huge.

So today, I'm not only encouraging you to talk to anyone who'll listen about little things we can do to ease the pressure we've collectively put on the earth, but I'm going to give you another little idea :-). It's just a tiny one, perhaps you already do it.

* if you cook bread, pastry, or roll out biscuits, chances are your recipe calls for you to cover your dough with plastic cling wrap. Don't! A damp cloth (a napkin or tea towel) will work just as well, that's what people did before they had rolls of plastic wrap! We don't use plastic wrap at all anymore, in fact. Items to be microwaved are covered with a lid or plate, items for the fridge are covered the same way and lunches use reusable boxes or bags. Maybe you could start eliminating plastic wrap too!

So that's my tip for today, perhaps it'll have a butterfly effect. If you're new to my blog, look around and you'll find more of the ideas that we do.

The blogs I read each day inspire me constantly - thank you to the bloggers who share the things they do to live greener, more sustainable lives. Here are a few great places to get inspired.

• Little Eco Footprints
• Slow Living Essentials
• The Witches Kitchen
• Urban Homestead South Africa
• Down To Earth
• Grass Roots on Facebook (or in fact, the magazine!)

(BTW, I read many more wonderful blogs, these are just the ones where I get the most "green tips")

Do you have a tip, just something small, that we can spread the word on? Comment below! Or, if you write a blog, pop a link below and link back here on your blog. If you know another blog that, like those listed above, is full of ideas, let me know that too so I can add if to this list (and my personal reading list). Lets talk folks, and work together to make a big difference.

Back to work

As I sat drinking my cider and eating another of my Christmas chocolates last night, it occurred to me that it was about time for me to go back to work. No, I'm not off to hunt for a new job, I'm sticking with the jobs I have, but as I work from home and for myself, I have the pleasure of taking my time out/holidays when I choose, but the tough task of also deciding when they're over.

Now don't get me wrong, I've still been working over the last couple of weeks- baking our bread and cooking from scratch, watering the garden, caring for the animals and maintaining a level of cleanliness in the house. But I've also been cutting corners and allowing slack time. The house isn't as clean as I like it to be, I haven't planted new food crops in weeks, we've been eating lots of Christmas leftovers, simple meals and the contents of various Christmas hampers and I've spent a lot of time reading, browsing the Internet (Pinterest is seriously addictive!) and chilling out, and not very much time exercising or planning the year for Koroit belly dance.

My zucchini plants haven't been on holidays!
Pickling zucchinis is therefore on the to-do list today.

Stu went back to work last week, and while the kids are still on holidays, I've decided today is my first work day of 2013. I've written the jobs list and have already started tackling it, but there is a lot to do, and like anyone returning to work after summer holidays, I'm struggling to maintain momentum, and am easily distracted (ooh look! A shiny thing!).

I'll get there though as the rewards of a tidy, productive home are worth the effort. And when I feel like slacking off and returning to summer holiday mode, I will remind myself why I prefer these jobs to the alternative and get back to work!

Seperett Waterless toilet - a review

If you follow my blog, you'll remember a couple of months ago that we bought a waterless toilet.  We've had the toilet installed now for about 6 weeks and I thought it was about time to let you know how its going.  So here is our review, which is honest and written completely independent of the company we purchased from or the producer of the toilet.

So, after much consideration of the various waterless toilet options that would work for our home, we opted to buy the Seperett Villa 9000 from a company called A better way to go.  Before we purchased the toilet (and all of the supporting materials), I spoke to Carol at A better way to go on the phone.  Her customer service and product knowledge was brilliant, and she was able to give me the reassurance that the product would work well for our situation and was also able to give me a quote for exactly what I wanted, including freight, within the day. 

After ordering, our loo, the two Aerobins and the consumables we ordered arrived within two days.  All of the boxes were light and easy to carry and would have fitted into a station wagon, but took two trips in Stu's small hatchback.

Toilet in a box!

With much excitement, we unpacked and played with the unit to work out how it all worked.  In a nutshell, the toilet has a section at the front that connects to a hose, this is where liquids go and can be 'flushed' with a cup of water when needed, or a 'bioblock' can be placed in there to prevent urine salt build up.  The back section has a 'privacy flap' which is blue and opens up automatically when you sit on the seat.  Below this flap is where the bucket goes, and all solid material goes into the bucket.  The toilet has a small fan inside which operates constantly to remove all smells and moisture from the inside of the toilet.  The toilet plugs into a regular powerpoint (using an included adaptor as the plug is European) and has two speeds, one for regular use and two for big smells! :)

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The toilet out of the box.

The top of the toilet opens up (and locks open) to reveal the bucket and fan at the back.  You can see on the top the blue privacy flap, the urine diverting section and the mechanism that causes the flap to open.

We installed the toilet ourselves over two days.  It would have been much quicker except that we were installing it in the position of our existing toilet and because this toilet doesn't have a cistern, we had to repaint the room.  We also had to buy a few extra plumbing connectors (which required a trip to town).  If you're going to install one, plan ahead so you have a spare loo in the meantime!

The written instructions that came with the toilet were pretty vague, but the video on the website is very handy, though you do need to have a bit of a clue when it comes to renovations and some ability to think creatively for the installation.  A few things were involved.  First we had to remove the existing toilet and work out a way to seal the pipe that the waste used to go into.  We chose to divert our urine to the septic tank (there are a couple of other options for urine though if you should choose), so used a converter to reduce our 100mm pipe to a 25mm pipe and connected this through the existing hole in the floor into the existing plumbing.  As we have very limited under floor access, this was fiddly and involved some bad language, but not too hard.  The toilet also has to have a pipe for the exhaust fan to blow through.  We piped ours directly out of the back wall and then away on the outside of the house.  Not hard again, but you have to be brave about cutting big holes in your walls :)

The power plug is simple, though as with most toilets, we don't have a powerpoint in there, so it is still currently running on an extension cord - we will eventually have a powerpoint installed so we can get rid of the extension cord.  And the final part of installation is screwing the unit to the wall or floor - we chose the floor as it was easier and felt more stable.

Having installed the toilet, our family were all very keen to be the first to use it!  I won! It is mostly like using a normal toilet without the flush, but with a few differences.  First of all, when you sit on the seat, it lowers an extra couple of centimeters as it pushes down the button to open the privacy flap.  This makes a 'clunk' sound and feels a bit off putting until you get used to it.  I find I need to sit just a little further forward than usual in order to make sure that urine goes in the front and not in the bucket (you don't want a bucket full of wee!).  Poo and toilet paper go in the back without trouble, and except for the lack of a 'splash'  feel pretty normal.  Unless you want to, you don't have to see the solids in the back, so there is no need to check out what others have done in there, the privacy flap closes over neatly when you stand up again.

For girls, the toilet runs pretty much as normal.  For kids and men, its a little different.  The privacy flap is just that, for privacy only, and not watertight.  So if men stand and wee haphazardly at the toilet, you can end up with a bucket full of wee.  There are two problems with this, first it fills the bucket quicker and impacts on the composting later, and second it causes more smell.  So we encourage men to sit for everything.  Our rule is that if you want to stand you go water a tree!  For kids, the toilet comes with a children's seat which easily clips onto the regular seat and directs wee and poo from smaller bottoms into the right spots - my kids cottoned on very quickly, but visiting kids need a hand and if you had a very little one, it might be worth leaving the seat on and removing it for adults rather than the other way around.

Smell from the toilet is most people's concern.  It says on the website that it doesn't smell, but to be honest, we were all a little dubious.  But truly, it does not smell!  The fan takes away all smells, not only from the toilet, but the whole room.  We have our kitty litter in that room too, and now never even smell that.  The fan literally takes the smell directly out, so even entering the room straight after a bloke has been in there for his daily sit, there is nothing to smell!  Only once have I smelt it, and it was a really hot day.  We simply bumped up the fan to level 2 for a while and it was better in no time.

As far as I'm concerned there are only two things I don't like about using the toilet.  First, the seat is flimsy plastic and I don't like it!  You can change the seat, but it is a little tricky to get one that will fit right and press the button for the privacy flap.  The only other thing I don't like is a real girly problem - that time of the month when things get a bit messier.  But I deal with it, and just use a cup of water to 'flush' the front of the toilet when I need too.

Toilet installed, complete with instructions for use on the wall, kids seat and 'wee wipes'.

Oh, and guests sometimes are a little frightened of the new loo, so I put up some simple instructions that I wrote for them.

As a family of four, I find that the bucket needs emptying about every two and a half weeks.  Though it may be less often when the boys are at school, Stu is at work and we don't have all of the holiday visitors we've had recently.  Emptying is really very simple.  The toilet comes with 3 buckets and 2 lids and you use biodegradable bags in the buckets (though I may move away from these and just use a sheet or two of newspaper in the bottom once I'm out of bags).  Once I know the bucket is full, I prepare a new bucket and grab a lid.  Then it is simply a matter of opening the toilet and popping the lid straight onto the full bucket.  Honestly, you don't even need to see the contents.  The lid can be clipped on and the bucket removed.  I use this opportunity to give the inside and outside of the toilet a thorough clean with some of my homemade orange cleaner and a soft rag.  The whole toilet is made from plastic, so you don't want to use any abrasives, but it is really easy to clean and I feel like it is actually staying cleaner than our old toilet.  The new bucket and bag are then put in and it is ready to go.

Meanwhile, the full bucket needs to be emptied.  We opted to buy two of the Aerobin composters at the time of purchase, to save on postage, and also so that we have a new one to go onto once the first is full (the humanure needs a 12 month composting period before it can be spread around the garden).  Emptying the bucket is easy.  You carry it to the compost bins, and then before you remove the lid of the bucket, gather up the handles of the bag and open the compost heap.  Then simply remove the lid and quickly deposit the (untied) bag into the compost.  There is a moment there where you get a lovely fragrance of a couple of weeks worth of poo, but it is over quickly. 

Our two Aerobins look neat and unobtrusive in the garden.

And that's it!  In about 18 months, we'll have our first load of composted humanure to spread around under our trees, and we will have saved heaps of water and helped out our sick septic tank :)

We are very happy with our new toilet, and are happy to answer any questions you might have, ask away!

PS. If you use a lot of toilet paper, the bucket will fill very quickly.  Everyone in our house has cut back on toilet paper, and as the only girl, I've made up some cloth 'wee wipes' after seeing the idea in a Grass Roots magazine.  These are used for me and also for if there are any drips on the seat from the boys.  Since having them, our toilet paper consumption has dropped heaps and the bucket fills slower.  But of course, these are a very personal choice.

Keeping it green in 2013

In 2012, we set ourselves the 12 months of greening challenge. We had decided to work at being more eco conscious, reducing our carbon footprint, being more green, becoming raving hippies, being better citizens of planet earth, or browning up the place as my friend Charlotte puts it. However you want to put it, our goal was to set ourselves a little challenge each month and gradually make ourselves and our children more aware of our impact, and in doing so, reduce said impact. We did the challenges, and I blogged about most if them, and we are all feeling much better about ourselves. But it doesn't end with the year. In 2013, we're keeping it green (catchy huh?).

So what's the plan? First of all, we're going to revisit many of last years challenges. A meat free month won't hurt us again, a month of not buying anything won't either. Some of our challenges, like rubbish free lunches, have been such a roaring success that we have never taken a rubbish-y lunch since, so no need to revisit that one! But others have slipped a little and need reminders, such as generally buying less crap, and reducing the amount of waste we produce. In addition, we're going to try some other challenges as we make our way towards self sufficiency (for the record, we don't plan to ever be self sufficient, but figure we'll just keep edging closer and be proud of every little effort we make).

So rather than one big challenge each month, we'll have a few goals, which we'll post on the kitchen notice board, and here on the blog. Some of the challenges will be personal challenges that apply only to our family and home, but if any of them grab you as appropriate to you home, I'd love your company on our journey!

The goals for January so far are:

• Reduce washing to 3-4 loads per week (at the moment it is about 6 or more! The boys in particular are culprits of tossing un-dirty items in the laundry for washing)
• Make bread products without the bread maker machine (to reduce the amount of power used and maybe, eventually, allow me to get rid of another appliance)
• Declutter the house (all encompassing challenge this one - get rid of some stuff and don't get more!)
• Less wasteful breakfasts (we're fond of cereals here, but I'm tired of the 'bag in a box' rubbish that comes with them, so we're trialling new breakfast options that are healthy, filling and not too hard that come with less rubbish)

a loaf made without the breadmaker - happy with that!

That's enough for one month I think! Let me know if you join in a challenge or have any tips for us, and I'll let you know how we went when the month is done.

Welcoming in the new year

Happy New Year to you all! Yesterday we farewelled 2012 with a fabulous family fun day. And as we leave 2012 behind, our family leaves behind a massive roller coaster of a year.

Last year's early and fun Christmas celebration with my family - an hour before Stu had a seizure and we were catapulted into the roller coaster that was 2012.

A year during which my husband was diagnosed with epilepsy, and due to his massive seizure last Christmas, was unable to drive for 3 months, causing some pretty tough times for us. But through this, we found out how supportive our community and family is and also, through the scariness of watching my husband have a seizure and be transported off in an ambulance, I realised just how much he means to me.

It was a year when our bank balance started off fairly low, and our main source if income was snatched away by a company closing down all of its rural and regional branches and thus making my husband redundant. But it was also a year when we became more self sufficient, and eco friendly and much less consumerist, resulting in us not only making a massive dent in our 'carbon footprint', but also saving a lot of money. And it was the year that Stu was offered a job by a business contact and was therefore lucky enough to walk from one job, straight into another.

It was a year for watching generations change. We sadly farewelled three grandmothers, and while we and our children felt the loss, we were probably most hit by watching our own parents grieve the loss of their mothers. But as we farewelled those three special women, we welcomed a new special woman into the world. The arrival of our first niece, Clover,was not only a truly amazing time for me as I was invited to share in her birth, but we've loved watching her grow these last few months, and hope to continue to be a special part of her life.

As I listen to my happy, healthy, bright and gentle children play in the next room and look out to my thriving garden and animals surrounding our uniquely special home, I am very grateful for all of the experiences we've had this year - good and bad - as they have shaped our family into what we are today as we head into 2013.