Slow Living Diary August 2012

Once again, I am joining in with Christine from Slow Living Essentials for a monthly reflection of slow living…

NOURISH: We’ve been cocooning with the latest wintry blast of cold weather – think lots of Vegetarian and Vegan Pizzas as well as batches of Vegetarian (tomato free) Lasagna.

PREPARE: I made a batch of pear jam when we were gifted a small box of odds and sods pears. I’ve been making large batches of slices courtesy of my CWA cookbook for kinder, so Little B has a bit of variety in his lunchbox (think Banana Slice with Lemon Icing and a healthy faux marshmallow slice).

REDUCE: After this months reading, I’m now keeping every single jar that comes into our place and trying to find a use for it. I loved a suggestion by a local CSA to use them to make grab and go salad jars for summer. Quick shake and dressing is sorted.

 
GREEN: I’ve started making our own dishwasher powder (recipe courtesy of My Healthy Green Family). It works really well and we haven’t had any problems with our dishes. I tried making our own washing powder again but it just doesn’t seem to work (things just arent clean) – not sure what I’m doing wrong there.

Our grid connect flat panel solar was finally connected and we’ve been generating at least 3 kwh per day in pretty crappy weather. Plus our lovely solar tracker finally has all her panels – now to get her hooked up to the house!!

GROW: I’ve planted out two kinds of potatoes in grow bags and started sowing seeds (squash, pumpkins and capsicums). Today Mr B and I mapped out where future beds will go and it looks like I will get an extra 1.5 beds for planting this year..yay!!

CREATE: Sadly I’ve done very little creating this month – unless you count playing with recipes in the kitchen.

DISCOVER:  This month my reading has been mainly on toxic old plastic. How bad it is, how to get rid of it and different alternatives to tryout. We’ve been removing plastic for the last 2.5 years but I figure if you only learn one new thing it’s worth it. I really loved Beth Terry’s new book “Plastic Free: How I kicked the plastic habit and how you can too" and aim to try out some of her suggestions over the next month or two.

The other key book I read this month was The Coming Famine: The global food crisis and what we can do to avoid it by Julian Cribb. Talk about an eye opener – up there with The Great Disruption by Paul Fielding. Lots of things to think about and lots of changes coming to the House of B because of it.

Little B and I have been reading Mr Galliano’s Circus by Enid Blyton. My favourite fun reads have been Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness (the much awaited sequel to Discovery of Witches) and The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman. The Dovekeepers was a really challenging read because it is quite dark and cruel towards women but at the same time really interesting because they characters feel quite real.

ENHANCE: We bartered in conjunction with our neighbours and engaged a local person to put up our back fence. Took a lot longer than the mainstream route but we finally have a secure back fence and privacy from the street (long story but you could see all of our backyard through our behind neighbour’s front yard from the street).

ENJOY: Little B and I have been having experiment days as he is really passionately interested in inventions and science. It’s been so fun working with him as we’ve grown crystals, balanced coloured water, made old fashioned tin can telephones and created his own water collector invention. We’ve also been learning / remembering to play checkers/draughts as a family. Makes for a great game after dinner :-)