Arctic Summer Ice Melt

If you thought that the Wilkins Ice shelf breaking off the coast of Antarctica was scary earlier this year, now some scientist are now predicting an ice free north pole, either this or next summer in the Northern Hemisphere. Have a look at the video.



That means that the planet will heat up even quicker because when the ice is present, it acts like a big mirror and reflects back sunlight and heat. This is what is known as the "Albedo effect" As the ice melts (as it is now), and the darker Arctic Ocean becomes visible, it absorbs more heat from sunlight, therefore accelerating the rate of warming at the north pole. This in turn creates climate chaos in the Northern Hemisphere, and consequently, in the Southern Hemisphere.

I told you it was scary!

The Chook House

Finally, I have finished the living quarters for the not yet arrived chickens. I spent about 3 hours this afternoon putting the roof on, and made sure it was fairly draft proof. I will do the water proofing part tomorrow night as I ran out of time today. It has taken me about 5 weekends to get this far, as before the nerve block, I could only manage about an hour before the back pain kicked in. At the moment the 3 hours I did today was probably all I could have managed, because my legs are getting sore now.

The roof is detachable and is fastened by case clips either side. This way I can take the roof off and muck the roost out every so often. It is not too heavy, but it is probably best if two people lift it. I made sure that it sloped to the rear of the house so that the rain would run off onto the nesting box roof. I could probably fit a gutter if I got really fancy, that drained to a water butt. I will have a think about that, because it would be nice if the house could harvest its own water supply for the hens.

Here is a picture with the roof taken off, so you can see what I am on about. It comes off in one piece.

And here is an inside view so you can see the raised floor. The floor will have straw on it to make it easier to clean up their droppings.

I attached a little nesting box at the back of the roost with a hinged lid so we can get at the eggs. I am still looking around for something to put in there. I should be able to put two nests in this space.

This is the nesting box with the lid up. Look who decided to have a look at my handy work! Butch gets into everything.

As you can see it has a cute little opening at the front, and I figure that if Butch can fit through it, a chicken should have no problems at all.

There he is! He was so excited for me, and I think that he thinks it is his house. I have a rude shock for him when the three chickens turn up!

All I have to do now is finish off the water proofing, test for leaks, and then give it a lick of paint. That will protect the wood for at least a few years. They should stay warm in winter, and cool in summer, because under each piece of corrugated iron is a wooden ceiling to keep the elements out. This way the heat from the iron will not heat it up like a hot box. I don't want to cook the chickens, I just want their eggs! The hen house cost me about $40 for, nails and roofing screws, 1 x 2.4 mtr length of wood (before I found lots wombling), the corrugated iron, two gate hinges, the case clamps, and a blade for the jigsaw. Everything else was found by wombling or I had around the yard. The fence pailings were given to me by a friend, and most of the structural timber was reused from other projects. I have a half a can of external heritage green paint in the shed, so that is what colour it will be next week. Not a bad price if I say so myself. I was filled with a sense of achievement when I finished it. After I packed the tools away and Kim took the photographs, I felt like I could take on the world!

---

As I said, I finished the hen house off this afternoon, but I have been a busy boy. In the last post, you would have seen my wonderful loaf of wholemeal bread, however I put the ingredients into the bread maker very early this morning, and set off for my bi-weekly scavenge around the local building sites. I love to find good stuff that the builders have thrown away, and in a way I am a bit like a Womble (I don't look like one).


"Make good use of the things folks leave behind", you know, reuse it (it was a '70's thing kids). Anyway, wombling aside, I found some good lengths of timber to finish off the chicken cage, so all I need now are some galvanised 10 x 100mm nuts & bolts, and some rolls of chicken wire which I may have to pick up at the hardware store, . I might be able to find some off of eBay this week, so fingers crossed I should get that cheap as well. The two CCA round logs were bought from the timber yards so they don't count.

I also came across this fantastic find in a junk pile at a dead end street in the new housing estate. It is a nice length of shade cloth that will fit perfectly over the chicken run. I was gob smacked when I found it. It would have cost me a fortune as would have the wood. You can see the area where the chicken run is going to be located to the top left of the picture. I am never going to buy wood again.

What a great find, and of course Butch could not miss another photo opportunity! Aside from the wombling, after I got home with my lovely booty (arrrrh, Pirate noises), I watered the vegetable patch, fertilised the citrus trees with Powerfeed, did a little bit of weeding, cooked dinner, and wrote this post. We had a chicken stew with bok choy, made in the pressure cooker of course, with a few slices of my wholemeal bread. What a great way to finish off the day!

Home Made Bread 2

Just a quick follow-up from yesterdays post. I made a hybrid loaf of wholemeal bread this morning, and it came out great. I think it could have risen a little more on the top, but otherwise it looks and smells great. I used the same recipe as I listed in the previous post, but instead of cutting it into 8 portions, I just put the dough into a well greased large loaf tin, and punched it down. I then put it in a slightly warm oven to rise, and then cooked it at 190 degrees C for 25 minutes. Here is the finished result in all its glory.



I love the smell of bread baking in the oven, and the taste of a fresh steaming slice with butter! It helps remind me that it is the simple things in life that are the best.

Home Made Bread Rolls

I didn't want to write this post until we had perfected the recipe for our bread rolls, but now we have, here is the story.

Last Wednesday, Kim thought about making some wholemeal bread rolls for lunch. She though of it because she notice that there was a dough making setting on the bread maker, and wanted to see if we could make our own rolls cheaper than buying them. Usually we would have bought these from our local Bakers Delight, but as I didn't feel very well, we decided to give it a go with what we had in the house.

Firstly, we already had some pre-mixed bread making flour, that we had already used in the bread maker. We use Laucke bread mixes in 5 kg bags, that are made in Adelaide. The flour was fine, but the loaves always came out a little bit too stodgy for our liking. The bread was not firm inside, and was a bugger to cut into slices smaller than a door stop. However, if you left the bread for a day it was easier to cut. But we wanted to eat it the same day we made it!

On the back of the bread mix bag were suggestions for modifying the recipe for moulded products i.e. bread rolls or pizza dough, so I gave it a go. I measured up 560 gms of bread mix, 370 ml of warm water, and 3 teaspoons of bread making yeast. I placed the ingredients into the bread maker bowl, in the order of water, flour, yeast, set the bread maker to the dough setting and pressed start. The cycle took about an hour and 30 minutes. I think that it has two rising phases in this cycle. Once completed, I took the dough out and placed it on a floured board and let it sit for 10 minutes so it was easier to handle. Then Kim worked her magic.

She cut the dough into eight equal portions, and then did a little kneading thing (she remembered how to do this from somewhere) and then rolled the top of the dough ball into some quick oats (porridge oats) to decorate the tops. She placed the unbaked rolls onto two pizza trays, oat side up, which had been sprayed with canola oil, and I placed warm damp tea towels over the trays. Here are the unrisen rolls.

As it is winter here, the dough would not rise by itself, so we put the gas oven on the "keep warm" setting for 5 minutes, then turned it off. This gave us the right temperature to make the rolls rise. Into the warm oven with tea towels on top of the trays, and we left them for 30 minutes to rise. Here are the risen rolls.

After the dough had risen, I took the rolls out of the oven and uncovered them. They had nearly doubled in size and were in between the size of a dinner roll and a lunch roll. Just right we thought. Then I heated up our fan forced gas oven to 190 degrees C, and after about 5 minutes put the rolls into bake. We baked the rolls for 18 minutes and left them to cool on the side.

Of course we couldn't wait the 5 minute cooling time before sampling a steaming wholemeal roll spread with butter. It was so delicious, and both Kim and I said at the same time, "Why didn't we try this before!". We both laughed and kept eating the tasty morsel. Here are the finished rolls. Don't they look yummy.

Since Wednesday, we have made bread rolls three more times, and have found that they go so quickly (into our tummy's). Ben has had some in his lunch box, and we eat them when we have a stew or casserole for dinner. It certainly beats making bread in the bread maker or buying them from the baker and I figured out that it costs about 7 cents per roll if you cost up the flour, electricity and gas. Pretty good seeing that you can't buy 6 rolls for less than $2 in Safeway, or 50 cents each at Bakers Delight.

Our success has given us the idea of making a hybrid loaf of bread. What I mean by that is, make the dough in the bread maker, and cook the dough in the gas oven in a proper bread tin. Don't get me wrong, the bread maker cooks a decent loaf of bread, but it doesn't look like a loaf of bread as it is a very tall loaf with a small top. We are going to give that a go tomorrow. It should be good, if we get the timing right.

Wish us luck!

Australia's Deceptive Kyoto Target

According to a media release (11 Dec 1997) by the United Nations Environment Programme, the Kyoto Protocol is defined as;

"The Kyoto Protocol is an agreement under which industrialized countries will reduce their collective emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2% compared to the year 1990 (but note that, compared to the emissions levels that would be expected by 2010 without the Protocol, this limitation represents a 29% cut). The goal is to lower overall emissions of six greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons, and perfluorocarbons - averaged over the period of 2008-2012. National limitations range from 8% reductions for the European Union and some others to 7% for the US, 6% for Japan, 0% for Russia, and permitted increases of 8% for Australia and 10% for Iceland."

Australia's greenhouse gas target as specified by the Kyoto protocol is 108% of 1990 levels by the year 2012. That is an increase, yes an increase my friends! We were the only country besides Iceland (110%) that were allowed an increase in greenhouse gasses (GHG) during the foundation of the treaty. It was known at the time as the "Australia Clause" and was allowed due to the Australian delegates claim and dogged insistence that Australia had undergone extremely high levels of land clearing in 1990, which meant that our baseline was quite high compared to other countries.

That aside, the basis of the protocol is to reduce GHG, that have been found to cause man-made climate change with an increase in global temperatures. I have written about climate change in many of my blogs posts. Our leadership at the time went against the tide, citing that the protocol would cost Australian jobs, due to our high levels of trade with countries such as China and India who did not have any reduction obligations. They also claimed that the Australian Government had pledged funds in their budget to combat climate change. So to keep the Australian delegates at the negotiation table, the rest of the world allowed us to increase our emissions during 1990 to 2012.

What a sham, and such narrow minded thinking. We, as a nation, have been allowed to continue spewing GHG into the environment, without any strategy or incentive to decrease our national emissions. We were the biggest emitter on a per capita basis back in 1990, and we still are today. Sure, we have reduced our per capita emissions by 13.8% from 32.6 to 28.1 tonnes CO2 equivalent, but only because our population has increased. Nothing has changed in 12 years since the protocol was formulated, with little incentive to cut our emissions, and certainly nothing forced upon us by legislation from the Australian government. As I stated in my previous post, the Emissions Trading Scheme will change all of that, but, oh my god, there has been a lot of water under the bridge since then, or in the case of Victoria, no water because of our states reliance on brown coal to provide the population with electricity (and of course because of a bloody long drought).

So what has happened since 1990? Well this table says it all. I have taken the data from the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory 2006, which was release this month;

	Emissions Mt C02-e		Percent change in emissions
	1990	2006	1990 – 2006
Energy	286.4	400.9	40.0%
Stationary energy	195.1	287.4	47.3%
Transport	62.1	79.1	27.4%
Fugitive Emissions	29.2	34.5	18.1%
Industrial Processes	24.1	28.4	17.7%
Agriculture	86.8	90.1	3.8%
Waste	18.8	16.6	-11.4%
Land Use Change	136.5	62.9	-53.9%
Forestry	0.0	-23.0	NA
Australia’s Net Emissions	552.6	576.0	4.2%

To read the full report, click here.

We have increased our emissions by 4.2% and still have 4 years remaining before the end of the protocol. The only category that has really saved our bacon has been Land Use Change, and if we weren't allowed the "Australia Clause" during negotiations, we would have increased our emissions by at least 50%. That is a dreadful result, and one the we as a nation should be ashamed of. However, seeing that the USA is still to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, we shouldn't feel too bad. Why would the worlds single biggest emitter of GHG want to sign something that would actually make them act, and change from the business as usual situation they are in? And as for China and India, the next emissions treaty needs to include them, and in fact all nations of the world, or it will just be a worthless piece of paper.

One can only hope that with the change of government in November, the USA will act, and act swiftly to reduce their emissions. Now, as for Australia, I can only hope that the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme due to be implemented in the next year or so, will have enough teeth to force all sectors to reduce emissions drastically, without the flow-on effect of punishing the low income workers. I have read that the government will ensure that scheme takes care of the so called working family. You can read about it here. If ETS is a toothless tiger, we are not in for a good time in the next 20 years. The planet will make sure of that!

So all in all, a disappointing effort regarding climate change for Australia, and as an Australian, I am ashamed. The European Union seams to be pulling out all the stops to attempt to meet their allocated target. If they can reduce their emission, I am sure as hell, we can. At least in the transportation sector we will see a reduction due to the escalating price of oil!

Scientists claim that the efforts of climate change are accelerating, and that we have even less time to reduce global GHG emissions. I dare say that once the summer Ice cap on the Arctic Ocean is gone, the effect will speed up even more. Fingers and toes crossed, and with some concerted effort on mankind's behalf, we may avert the catastrophic climate change that threatens our existence.

If it were not for Hopes, the Heart would break.
- Thomas Fuller.

Bring On a Low Carbon World

A low carbon global economy strikes me as a good thing, but I think that some just don't get it yet. I was reading this article in the Sydney Morning Herald titled "Bracing for the new, low carb economy"

The article states;

"Bankrupt power generators, regular blackouts, abandoned cement and steel factories, a 10c a litre jump in petrol prices, spiralling electricity bills and unaffordable air travel - welcome to Australia in 2010. An emissions trading scheme has just been introduced and the worst fears of Australian businesses have been realised."

Now this is of course the worst case scenario, but with typical media flare and sensationalism, I believe it paints an overly grim view of the upcoming Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Petrol jumping 10c a litre? Well its not like that doesn't happen every week anyway due to the end of cheap oil!

The article goes on to say that;

"The introduction of a carbon price will affect every company in Australia, boosting the cost of electricity, transport and fuel. It has been likened to the GST and globalisation in terms of the impact it will have on the economy."

Of course it will have an effect on every company, and tell me again, why this is a bad thing? The big emitters of Carbon Dioxide and other greenhouse gasses will have to pay more because they pollute more. So, inversely that means that companies that reduce their carbon footprint or are based on sustainable and renewable practices will be the big winners because their bottom line will be lower. The public will win, if he or she purchases products that have a low carbon impact, which will encourage people to find alternatives in their lifestyle, hopefully for the better. And what is this rubbish about the cost of electricity soaring. Maybe, just maybe, it will spur electricity generators or investors to start building more wind and solar farms which will benefit by the ETS because they are basically carbon free investments once the cost of the embedded carbon used to build them is generated by the system itself. Renewable energy should drop in price and Fossil Fool based energy will rise. Well, that is what I am hoping will happen. Whatever the outcome, my PV system continues to chug away, reducing my energy bills even further. Maybe more people (including governments) will understand that home power generation is also a good thing for them as well as the human race and is not a case of who can or cannot afford a system!

The SMH article was typically one sided, with comments from the CEO of Cement Australia, who, funnily enough has a vested interest in the ETS and the way it is constructed. The process of making cement is a large emitter of CO2, so why wouldn't they want articles like this one in the press, used to confuse and place fear into the minds of the average Australian. I have also noticed the same sort of stories in other newspapers that have comments from Coal companies, Coal fired Electricity companies, and of course Oil companies, but little in the form of a balanced view by looking at what good will come from an ETS. It reminds me of the Tobacco industry all over again. All these companies are losers in a low carbon economy. These type of smear tactics make me sick to the core, as does the lobbying by these companies towards every government on the planet. The future of the human race as we know it is at stake, not the planets, for gods sake! The planet still will be here long after we have killed ourselves off, or at least a considerable number of us. Profits should not come before people and their ultimate survival on this planet! Nero fiddles, whilst Rome burns, literally.

So get your act together, all you polluters, stop whinging and lobbying, and actually show us your green credentials by determined actions, and make us and future inhabitants of this wonderful planet proud. You can do it, I know you can, because companies have souls, and the souls are the people that work there. When enough people have the courage to stand up for what is the right thing to do, then good stuff happens.

Change happens. There is that scary C word again, I love it. So much self inflicted change (for the better) has happened to me and my family in the last two years, and the musings of this blog is testament to that, so what is another one? Bring on the low carbon economy. I am ready for it, and so are many others like me. We must all remember that we only have one place to live in this big wide universe, so lets treat our tiny blue green marble with the respect it deserves, and stop stuffing it up for our grandchildren and future generations.

BRING IT ON!

Just Working Hard

Today, I slept in, which is a first for me for ages. Normally I am up with the fairies between 6-7 on a weekend, which some people would think abnormal. Me, I think to myself, why waste such a beautiful day off, when you only get two a week. However, I had been doing it so long, I couldn't remember what it was like to have a rest on a Sunday morning, so I did! Maybe it is because I can sleep a lot better since the nerve block procedure.

However, when I did rise, I was out in the garden, giving the compost a stir, checking for weeds in the vegepatch, picked five lemonade fruit that were ripe and gave the tree a little prune, and wrote a list of things I wanted to get done for the day. The first thing I wanted to do was to take Kim to the New Age festival at the local Community Centre. So I managed to raise her interested in it, and bundled Ben and Kim into the car, and we set off. Upon arriving at the centre, we paid out $7 each for adults with Ben for free, and had a look around. We soon found that most of the stalls were very over priced and could get the same sorts of necklaces and crystals far cheaper on Ebay. Even a tarot reading was $40 for 30 minutes. How one could stretch a reading out for 30 minutes was beyond me! Anyway, I was over people trying to tell my future, and as we had had a good look around, we decided to leave. My parting comment to Kim was that the future is what you make it, and not what someone predicts. Good advice that she agreed with.

When we got home, I started work on the remainder of the hen house. Adam and I had placed the last two posts in the ground yesterday, and all I had to do was finish off the house. I worked on the house for four hours, with a couple of tea breaks in between. I made quite a racket when cutting the corrugated iron with the jigsaw, and even had to put earplugs in before I started. Apparently, Kim was trying to talk to me about something whilst I was cutting, but I didn't even notice.

I managed to get a roof with a hinge on the laying box with a fairly wind and water proof seal, and have finished the frame for the main roof that will have the removable corrugated iron roof. By having a removable roof, I will be able to clean it easily, a few times a week. At this rate, I should have chickens by next Spring. Notice the sarcasm about the speed I am currently working at! Better to work slowly, preserving my back, than to stuff it up completely.

Kim had been working all day on cleaning up Adam's old room, and had started moving furniture into it. She was quite pooped, so I decided to make dinner as I got my second wind. I finished work on the chook house at about 1645, and then went inside to start making a chicken and vegetable soup/stew in the pressure cooker. It has become second nature using the pressure cooker as the food tastes so great and it cooks so quickly.

I gathered up a whole bunch of fresh rosemary, lemon thyme, thyme, and oregano from the garden, added a bit of olive oil in the Jamie Oliver herb basher, and wazzed it up for about 4-5 minutes. The end result was a herb concoction fit for a king, and smelled wonderful. I added a little more olive oil to this and placed it at the bottom of the pressure cooker, and fried it up for about 30 seconds, and then threw in the onions, garlic and cubed chicken thighs, for about 5 minutes. Next was the 1 Kg of root vegetables (potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes), and then 4 cups of spinach from the garden. I then added a can of diced tomatoes, 1 teaspoon of curry power, 3 tablespoons of coconut cream and a litre of chicken stock. Bunged on the lid, waited until under pressure, and then cooked for 25 minutes. The result was wondrous. Everyone enjoyed the hearty feed, and Ben was the first to clean up his bowl.

It was a great evening, because we had the pleasure of our friend Pam to enjoy the evening with, and we just talked and talked. Good friends make the evening go so much slower. Now, everyone else is in bed, except me, and after such a busy day, I better head off myself.

Bonne nuit mon amie.

Winter Solstice, Finally

Finally the shortest day of the year has nearly past us by here in the Southern Hemisphere.

That means that instead of the dreadful average 4 kWh of solar power I am generating per day for the last few weeks, it is onward and upward for the rest of the year. I have a 2.8 kWh grid tied PV system that sits on top of my carport, and it hasn't seen a full sunny day for what seams like ages. The best output I have had for the last two months was about three weeks ago with an 11 kWh day! I wish I had a wind turbine. At least we get a little bit of wind out here on the western plains when it is cloudy.

I will be planting my tomato and capsicum seedlings tomorrow in my little plastic green house. Hopefully it will warm up enough in it for them to germinate quickly and then I will transfer them into larger pots in a months time. It should be interesting, because I didn't start my seedlings off until August last year, and it took until mid January until I got to pick the tomatoes. The capsicums were not ready until late April/early May, and they were small, but tasty. I still have three capsicum plants, and two chilli bushes producing as I write. Hopefully, better luck this year with a longer and earlier crop.

Tomorrow, Kim and I are going to a New Age festival here in Melton. A few years ago, we would have thought that they were just a bunch of aging hippies, but now we are open to all sort of interesting things, and are keen to have a look. It should be a fun day!

Constructive Feedback Welcome

Yesterday, I asked a blogging site to rate my blog at www.blogged.com. I really didn't know what to expect, but all I did know is that, not only do I put my heart and soul into everything I do, I also try to write interesting posts that help educate and entertain. I love it when I get comments, as they are one form of feedback, but I rarely get suggestions for making improvements. I was chuffed to bits when I was independently rated at 7.3 (very good).

Now, you know what comes next. Could I please ask you, the readers to rate my blog via the little blogged.com tool in the right side bar, and leave constructive feedback, on what you would like to see more or less of in the blog. It is you, the reader, that keeps green bloggers like myself writing about the real issues of the world, so, please, take the time to write a few words.

Thanks to everyone in advance.

Gavin

Green Cleaning

Since our family started the journey towards a more sustainable lifestyle, our cleaning methods have changed towards more non-toxic products, that do less harm to us when we clean, and less harm to the environment as run-off.

We started using grey water at the very beginning of the journey, so we needed to change our laundry powder to one that had no Phosphorous and no Sodium so that we could use the water neat in the garden. The phosphorous would have damaged the native Australian plants, and the sodium tends to make the soil repel water, and increases the salinity. Also any run-off that the plants don't use, does not contaminate the ground water. We found, after trying a couple of NP brands, that the Planet Ark Aware laundry powder worked the best, and after reading an article in Choice, it was not made from any petrochemicals. Kim raves about it to anyone who will listen, because a 1 Kg box lasts her approximately 5 weeks for 6 peoples clothes as you only use 3 tablespoons per wash. It will probably last longer now that Adam has moved out. We also use a NP fabric softener, but don't use it very much. When washing towels, Kim pops in a few drops of eucalyptus oil to kill of any bacteria. It makes them smell nice too.

With the laundry sorted, we looked to the kitchen. We buy an earth friendly washing up liquid for the kitchen dishes that is also low in phosphates and sodium. We stopped using the dishwasher two weeks ago and gave it a thorough clean with vinegar and bi-carb soda, then put it through a cycle. So we are not only saving water, about 8 Kwh of power a week, and caustic dish washing tablets, but we have also realised something profound. When you wash dishes by hand, and you have someone drying them with you, you actually talk to each other and everything is cleaned far better than it would have in a dishwasher. Not only do you have quality control via an instant feedback loop, you can have a laugh and a joke around at the same time. There is only one rule that we stick to, and that is that the cook does not wash up. You can shotgun for the rest of the washing, drying or putting away!

Cleaning windows and mirrors is a cinch with vinegar in a spray bottle and newspaper. Not only is it cheap, but it keeps mould away, and stops mirrors from fogging up. It gives a nice clear finish without any smell. You can throw that Windex away now! I would rather have a small child accidentally swallow vinegar than some of the other nasties kept under the average Australian kitchen sink!

About a month ago we had a bad smell coming out of the kitchen sink, so it was out with the bi-carb soda, and down the drain with about 4 tablespoons. After about a minute I followed it up with a quarter of a cup of white vinegar and let it all fizzle. Let it go for about 3 minutes and then flush with some very hot water. Our drain will never have smelled so nice, and I may have gotten rid of a lot of built up grease as well.

The last cleaning thing I can think of is that Amy gives the showers a once over with some paste made up of bi-carb with an Ejoy glove and old rags, that gets rid of the soap scum that collects there. A little bit hot water afterwards washes it all away. Oh, I forgot the toilet. We use an Earth Choice toilet cleaner that works just as well as any of the more dangerous types. It is NP and its main ingredients are water, citric acid, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Glycolic Acid, eucalyptus oil, and Sodium Laureth Sulphate.
I ensured that the ingredients were only derived from plants and were fairly safe. You can use vinegar instead, but I am yet to convince Kim.

As for washing ourselves, I just use pure soap, but Kim and the kids use a liquid soap that is one of the organic brands. We use an organic shampoo, but have heard that bi-carb works just as well in very small doses. I don't think I will stretch my greenness or luck that far with Kim :). I shave with a pigs bristle brush, having given away shaving cream in a can, but am having trouble finding an alternative to disposable razors or blades. I don't shave very much, as I have a goatee, so I would not use as many as the average guy. I might investigate a cut throat razor in the near future, as they last for a very long time, and you sharpen (or is it blunt-en) it yourself. Sweeney Todd eat your heart out!

Well that is about all I can think that we use. We simply questioned if things were safe for us and the planet, and made the changes slowly over the course of about a year. If you have a couple of bottles of white vinegar and a big box of bi-carb soda, you have almost all you need to clean the house up. I did get most of the tips originally from reading Greeniology. Tanya Ha has a whole chapter on green cleaning. It helped finding all the good tips in the one place, and the tips a simple to implement.

To summarise, we save so much money on cleaning products (vinegar and bi-carb are cheap), feel safe when we clean, and know that it is better for the planet. Simply green, and making a difference! All we need to do now is safely get rid of the unused toxic products that are left over under the sink.

Reality Bites!

Adam, my 21 year old son, has just moved out of home again for the second time. He has moved to live with his girlfriend in Melton South, as her mum has just moved to Queensland to be with her sister. Life may have just become a little bit harder now that he has to pay his own bills!

Anyway, I sent him an email at lunch time, to ask him to return a power board that he accidentally on purpose took when clearing out his room. Here is how the conversation went (with some bits edited);

---

Gavin says:
When you visit again, I would like you to return my spare powerboard. The one you had your phone charger plugged into. I need it to connect all of the switches and ADSL routers up to so I can save some power by switching them off at night when not in use.

Adam says:
No wukkas. I'll bring them around next time i visit. Also, can i borrow your kw hrs gizmo thing you use to measure energy ratings or power points, i want to see what around my house is using power and what isn't.

Gavin says:
No problems with the Power-Mate but better still, I can do an energy audit for you free of charge. How does that sound? It would give me practice for a potential business opportunity.
I was in shock and awe when you asked for it. It must have hit home to you now that you have to pay your own power bill. Make sure it is a boomerang, as it cost a lot of money ($350+)

Adam says:
Thanks daddsy,
Yeah when the prospect of paying ones own bills is upon you, you try and remember everything your hippy dad taught you about Woodstock and power management...
Give me a week or two to sort out my furniture and get the old person and cigarette smell out of the house then we can maybe do lunch at my house and you can audit up my power usage. I can finally understand what it was like for trying to teach us kids to be more green. teaching Stacey is becoming a chore but she'll learn as we all did.

Gavin says:
That would be the most grown up email I have ever received from you Son! And it will be my pleasure to do the audit for you. Kim says she is very proud of that statement. She is not well today and in bed with a bad back. Mine gets better, hers gets worse, but it is OK. I am taking care of her.

Adam says:
You can put that quote up on your blog if you'd like, i don't mind if you don't edit it. If i knew i was being quoted i would of said something more epic. Something more along the lines of Braveheart and all that. Good to hear about your back, do you have any follow up treatments or was it a once off? Give Kim my regards and tell her not to let it get her down. If you can, check this out: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=pVKnF26qFFM
i think you might like it since you work in an office.

Gavin Says:
Cool, and you are funny.
I will look at the vid later, and Kim says thanks. Watch for the post tonight, it will be very enlightening.

---

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. The lad has actually learnt something. I thought Adam would be the least green out of all of us, but it just goes to show that money talks when you have to pay your own bills. Not only can I help him lighten his bills, but I can give him and Stacey tips on other ways to save natural gas, and how to insulate their place better. They are renting from Stacey's mum, so they will not be able to go all out, but just some simple draft proofing will make all the difference now that winter is upon us. A chip off the old block after all!

I will leave you with this thought provoking quote to reflect upon when you think your kids just don't get it:

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. - James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name.

P.S. the video is very funny.

Painful Bonus Update Post-Op

Thanks everyone for the words of encouragement the other day, I really appreciated it. You can imagine that I was a bit nervous going into some thing like this, as anyone would be, especially with doctors waiving spinal needles around near the nerve roots that traverse down both your legs. The two doctors, one nurse, and two radiologists were all fantastic, and I would recommend the Royal Melbourne Hospital to anyone. Thanks to them all for getting me through the procedure, even though I could only thank one of the doctors personally, as the other one had to run off to the next procedure. Busy people these doctors. I got a bit panicky at the beginning, but the nurse saw that I was starting to freak out and reassuringly stroked my hand and held it during the worst part until the local anesthetic kicked in. Thank you Rhonda, I am forever in you debt for that kind gesture.

Well, it is now post-op and the prognosis is looking promising at the moment. I felt a bit wobbly after the op but Amy was on hand to help her old Dad out. I even managed to catch a tram from the hospital back to Melbourne Central station, and then the Met to North Melbourne and then V-Line, home to Melton West. I felt safe with Amy holding on to me. She was a tower of strength, as was Kim who was looking after Ben, who had a bad head cold! Kim was so relieved when I called her from the hospital (as was I), and I think that she was worrying the whole time I was being prodded, poor girl. Don't worry darling, I am fine now.

I couldn't sleep last night, but not from pain, but from the lack of it. I had a killer headache before going to bed, but I think that was just my brain trying to figure out where my legs went. What a weird thing the body is. I still feel a numbness in both legs but it is certainly something I can live with at the moment, and last night I managed to sit down for more than 20 minutes without buttock pain (I know, too much detail). Here I am now, up with the fairies at 0600, having sufficiently rested, which is something that I have not done since pre-injury. I believe that the last time I awoke this refreshed was the day I went to the Collingwood Childrens Farm!

So where to from here, I here you ask? Well, I have the day off today to recover, so I will be resting and watching movies all day. I will walk Ben to if he is better, and let Kim sleep in. She had a restless night as well. The doctors said that most of the pain should abate over the rest of this week, and that I should get pain relief for a few months, which will give the steroids time to reduce the inflammation around the disc area. I have another visit to my Neurosurgeon in six weeks time to see what the verdict is, and possibly another MRI to see what is happening. Other than that, it is wait and see, but at this rate, the wait and see will be a lot better than the previous 10 months.

So here's to strong backs. The planet needs strong back bones right now!

Fighting Excessive Consumerism

Exaggerating to prove a point always strikes a chord with me, and especially so when it comes down to excessive consumerism. I have written a few posts about consumerism here. There is no better example of this than a well directed documentary, and I watched a pearler the other day. It was "What Would Jesus Buy?" featuring Reverend Billy, and the Church of Stop Shopping, directed by Morgan Spurlock of "Supersize Me" fame. The movie documents the plight of American Consumerism, their rampant and uncontrollable desire to buy stuff, and how they got themselves into this reality. You will see the attitudes of teenagers, children and adults all brainwashed to buy the latest fashion or electronic goods just to keep up with the Jones'. There is even a lady with a fully equipped wardrobe for her dog. All craziness! Let me just state for the record that I am not anti-American, it is just that the documentary focused on this nation. What can I say, many Australians are just the same!

The congregation travel the USA in two beat up buses that are run on bio-diesel, and go from venue to venue, performing a basic sermon about the evils of consumerism for consumerisms sake. Billy describes the reality that people are facing as the Shopocolypse! Not only is Billy a really good showman, but the choir sounds fantastic.

The exaggeration to prove a point, is that Billy is not a real reverend and the church is an activist group. From what I saw, they did not blaspheme, nor put down any religion, however they used a medium that most Americans are used to, to get their message across to the masses. You learn that Billy has a court order against him by Starbucks, and is not allowed within cooee of a store, and that when singing their gospel outside some of the big box stores like Wal*Mart and Kmart, they were ordered to move on by police and security. The last thing big retailers want are the Church of Stop Shopping outside their stores discouraging the punters to stop shopping, heaven forbid! The troupe even sang out the front of the Wal*Mart headquarters and Billy tried to purge the demons from the large sign. Hilarious stuff to watch. When Billy performed an exorcism on a cash register in Victoria's Secret, I knew that I couldn't stop watching or laughing about the simplicity of his message. I did find one thing disturbing though, and that was the behaviour of my youngest daughter Megan during the family showing of the movie. She was justifying her spending habits during the documentary, however, I do believe the message sunk in near the end. It was just strange behaviour, and I suppose it was the first stage of denial that will eventually lead to realisation, and then action on her behalf.

Many people in western nations live beyond their means. It is a documented fact that many of us swipe up huge credit card debit at Christmas time, all in the name of buying gifts for people, that we think will make them happy. You know what, it doesn't make you happy. Have a look at it this way. How many times have family members bought you something, and visa versa, and in a week or months time, the item gathers dust in the corner or under a bed somewhere? Too many as far as I am concerned. Our recent decluttering exercise at home is testement to that.

The simple message of this documentary is you don't have to buy an expensive gift for someone to show them that you love them. You can't buy love! Something as simple as a hug or a kiss or being there for your family when they need you is what love is about. Not that brand new Tickle Me Elmo that walks and talks or the Playstation 3 or Xbox 360 that glue your kids to the TV screen as a suedo babysitter. A hug or a good deed lasts forever in my mind, but stuff does not. Due to designed obselesance, it needs to be replaced with the next great product. Stuff just promotes the aquisition of more stuff and as I have stated before, it is advertising that tries to make us buy stuff we don't really need, with money we don't really have, to make us feel better about ourselves or make other feel happy, and to show off to people we don't even like. That is about as good a definition of excessive consumerism that you are likely to get (from me, anyway).

Anyway, enough ranting for one day. Here is a clip of the good Reverend Billy on prime time, and a trailer from the documentary. If you can get your hands on a copy of the DVD, I highly recommend it.

Bag Overhaul

I wrote yesterday that the whole family has followed me down the rabbit hole, so here is a classic example.

Amy, my 19 year old daughter has been having trouble with her favourite bag that she takes to Uni, and everywhere else for that matter. The lining was going in it, and it was fraying around the edges. She started to loose things between the lining and the bag, so something had to be done.

Now, a normal 19 year old would have trotted off merrily down to one of the fashion houses and bought a new bag, but not my Amy. To her credit she took Kim's sewing machine out of the cupboard (that had been gathering dust), and decided to fix the bag. She found another old reuseable shopping bag that was torn and converted that to the new lining. Here she is with the finished product.

Pretty cool, I thought, and it just goes to show that if you lead by a good example, others will follow. In my old life, I simply would have suggested that she bought a new one. Well done Amy! I am proud of you.

100th Post

It seems like yesterday that I first started writing about my family's journey towards a sustainable lifestyle. Since the 13th of February 2008, I have now written 100 entries on The Greening of Gavin. Boy, does it feel good to have accomplished so much in such a short space of time, and I still feel that our journey is still at the very beginning. Trying to live a sustainable lifestyle is always interesting, with some days being more difficult than others, and I have found that I learnt something new every single day of our 19 month journey. I am also so proud of all my family. To see them all rise to the challenge have been the most satisfying moments of being their father and husband. I have met some wonderful people along the way, who also have a common goal to tread lightly on the planet. They are some of the nicest people I know.

What amazes me most are not the technological solutions for solar power, solar hot water, and energy efficiency measures that we have implemented, but the daily cycle of the vegetable garden. It is in this small, vibrant, space that I derive the most pleasure each and every day, however, I have been caught a few times standing and staring at the solar panels like a love struck teenager!

Nature is a wonderful leveller, and it has the power to bring you back to reality very quickly. Just by spending a day in the garden fills me with joy, knowing that I am growing our own food as nature intended. To be in touch with the seasonal cycles uplifts your spirit, and keeps you in tune with your surroundings and helps you be at one with yourself. It certainly takes the steam out of a tough day in the office! If asked if I would do anything differently over the last 19 months, I would answer no. It is the journey so far that has made it all worthwhile and fun. We are closer as a family, and all understand the ramifications of our actions upon the planet. It is a pretty cool thing, when your eight year old son thinks you are a Scientist who is trying to save the planet. I have told him what I really do, but he doesn't believe me. I suppose actions always speak louder than words in a child's mind.

The only thing I would have changed, was to have woken from the dream that I used to call my life, one hell of a lot earlier. It took a movie (albeit a good one) to make me understand what was wrong with my lifestyle and to cause my green epiphany. It all feels so surreal to me now, that I used to lust after the latest dodad or gizmo, then seek instant gratification by using one of the many credit cards and I had to purchase it. That part of me is gone for good.

I now want for nothing. Kim mentioned to me only a few weeks ago, that it was so hard to buy something for my birthday. She did well though with the pressure cooker. It is something I use every week. To understand how far we have all come, all of my presents were wrapped in newspaper, as were everyone else's this year, and we made all of the cards we gave, and recycled the ones we received. I wouldn't have even thought simple things like this were possible a few years ago or even thought of it, let alone actually doing them ourselves. I am still gob smacked at the way everyone around me have followed me down the rabbit hole, and actually enjoyed it. It makes you have renewed faith in the real human spirit, and that we will overcome the major global issues that now face us all.

"`Who are YOU?' said the Caterpillar.
This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, `I--I hardly know, sir, just at present-- at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.'"
Lewis Carroll - Alice in Wonderland

Vegetable Deeds as Nature Intended

Yesterday morning, I transplanted some lettuce that I had been growing in a seedling bed into one of the larger raised beds. It was the bed that I had pulled all of the aphid infested broccoli out of.

It only took me about 30 minutes of kneeling, so it wasn't very strenuous. I also found some other lettuce seedlings that had sprouted up between the stones in the path. The seeds must have blown there when I let a few of the summer lettuce go to seed, so I could collect it for next season. I thought that it was pretty cool, not having to plant things, and let nature do the work for me! So I gently moved the stones and managed to lift four seedlings with root system intact, and then replanted them in the same bed as the other seedlings. I also have some Tommy Toe tomato seedlings that self seeded in the citrus tree pots, and as they are well protected from frosts, they should be ready to transplant in September to start off an early crop. Nature is cool!

The slug infestation that were chewing through my Bok Choy has now ceased. I mixed some left over coffee grounds at a ratio of about 1 to 5 with rainwater and, using my 9 litre watering can, sprinkled it all around the plants. I have not seen a slug since. I repeated the procedure today, around the lettuce seedlings, so hopefully I will get the same result. The Bok Choy is pictured below with the Nasturtiums. You can see the nibbled bits on the older leaves.

I stopped work after this, as my back/legs were beginning to hurt. Kim then performed some cupping on my back, which helped greatly. Nelson taught us how to do it and provided the equipment for a small fee, and we are both pretty good at it (that is 2 plugs in 2 posts Nelson, I will have to charge you advertising space :-)). It is a simple and drug free way of relieving my symptoms, and helps Kim's shoulder muscles when they are aching. I highly recommend it to anyone with regular aches and pains.

My Painful Bonus Update

Way back in March 08, I shared with everyone about my painful bonus after a volunteer day at the Collingwood Children's Farm. You see, I have a bulging disc at L5/S1 vertebrate, that is pressing against my sciatic nerves for both legs. This causes me nearly constant buttock and leg pain, and the injury occurred in August 2007, which is 10 months next Monday 16th June. I have weekly visits to my Chinese Medicine specialists, Nelson & Eisa, and my Physiotherapist, David. Here is a free plug for you all, and thanks for keeping me going for during the course of the injury.

Coincidently, the ten month anniversary is also the same day that I have the pleasure of receiving a Selective Lumbar Nerve Root block. The procedure is scheduled for 11am, and between you and me, I am a little nervous about it.

It is very similar to the type of epidural that women receive during childbirth (if they want it of course), but this procedure is done on both left and right sides of the disc bulge and a small amount of anaesthetic and corticosteroids are injected near the nerve roots, with the assistance of a CT scan to help the Surgeon to locate the right area. I have been told that it is very safe, and there is a good chance that the pain should go away either instantly or within a few days. I have also been told that it is a 50/50 chance that it will work at all, so I am not going in with high hopes. If it works, that will be fantastic, and maybe the chicken house will get finally finished, and I can go back to work full time. If it doesn't, I will just keep soldiering on, and wait for the pain to go away naturally.

With a couple of days rest, I should be back up and stuck into all the green things in my life on Wednesday. Rock on Monday!

Stuff I Have Stockpiled

Stockpiling has almost become a part of our lives, here in Melton West. I wrote a post about the subject a while ago, and now we have nearly completed our little project. This is what we have achieved so far;

Kim, Amy and I have re-organised the entire kitchen layout to accommodate all of the extra food that we have begun to buy. I am still loosing things, as we have not changed things much in the kitchen since we moved in 8 years ago. We analysed what we actually use as far a glassware goes, and decided that you can only drink out of so many glasses or coffee cups. Kim wrapped them up in newspaper and they are going to the charity shop on the weekend.

We have a ready use cupboard, a baking cupboard, two draws full of stockpile food, a bulk canned food cupboard, and dry-goods area. We now have a double cupboard that is empty, but will soon fill it up with more food items (probably UHT milk).

Most of the food is purchased, but not in the quantities that we have estimated to last us two months of no shopping. We need more basmati rice, olive oil, sugar, personal hygiene items, coconut cream, bread making pre-mix, vegemite & peanut butter, heaps of UHT milk (Kim doesn't like powdered milk), cereal and a few laundry items. We have an Aldi only 5 minutes up the road so that is where I got most of the food. Also a NQR opened two weeks ago, about 15 minutes away, so when I am down in Melton South, I pop in to check if there is anything cheap going in bulk that we use.

Now, I know that people like to have a sticky-beak in other peoples cupboards, so here they are in all their glory! You will also get a fair idea of what we have stocked up on so far. It may seam like a lot but remember that we have six humans and a small dog to feed. Kim also says that I remind her of the male character out of the movie "Sleeping with the Enemy" who had a quirk about having all the labels of the cans facing towards you. I am not that anal, but if you can't see what is in the tins, I find that you buy unnecessary extras.

The first is the vegetable storage draw with some canned fruit and dry soups.


The next draw is full of pasta, rice, dried beans/chickpeas, and flour. These draws are really deep and there is about 10 kg of pasta alone!


Next to the gas stove is the bulk canned food cupboard of spaghetti, red kidney beans, baked beans, diced tomatoes, corn kernels, with heaps of room left in it.

We have a ready use cupboard the we restock from the bulk storage. So far, when we use a lot of something, then we replace it back into the bulk storage within the fortnight.

Next is the condiment cupboard. We refill the tomato sauce bottles, the olive oil bottle from a 4 litre tin, and the rest doesn't really matter in during a crisis except that I love vegemite (yeast extract) which is full of vitamin B12 so we are getting a few jars of this.

Then there is the spice cupboard above the range hood. I have refills for most of these in a separate box that Kim made for me. There is stock powder and lots of vegetable stock cubes tucked up the back. I have stopped buying the 1 litre ready made stock liquid due to the excessive packaging.

Here is the fresh fruit bowl, dry cereal, cake & biscuit tins, cookbooks, and big cookware rack (including pressure cooker), with my wine rack and trusty wok down the bottom. Many a great stir-fry and curry has been made in that wok! You can also just see a bit of my big birdseye chilli necklace to the top right.

On the side is the ready use pasta and rice glass containers next to our bread maker (which I make jam in as well), and the steel Thermos that I fill whenever there is spare boiling water in the kettle. Then I make my tea from this water instead of having to boil another kettle full. Every little bit helps reduce our carbon footprint.

And finally some of the personal hygiene items we have stockpiled. We have also got lots of toothpaste, soap, and shampoo in the bathroom cupboard. I am ashamed that we didn't buy recycled toilet paper this time around, but will try and find some when next time we go shopping.

The only cupboard that I didn't take a picture of which is still quite full, is the preserve cupboard, so here is the archive photo of my preserves from a few months ago.

Not a bad collection so far, and we are rotating the stock through as we run down the ready use cupboards. We ensured that the shelf life for all the items was at least a year, as we figure that it might take that long to rotate through some items. We only have about a months worth of food so far, and ultimately are looking at stockpiling at least two months worth.

We have lots fresh vegetables to keep us going, soon will have chickens for eggs (I still haven't finished the hen house), and lots of tank water, however, I still have to buy about 5 food grade 20 litre water storage containers that I will fill from the rainwater tank. This is in case we get caught with an empty tank. I will be hoping for rain as well if that is the case. I can always desalinate some of the pool water if we get desperate. I hope it never comes to that though.

Some may think I am crazy, but as the scout's motto states, "Be Prepared"!