Soap Nuts

I read about soap nuts way back in 2007.  They are used in India and other parts of the world as an alternative to soap.  Check out this groovy snippet from season 3 of "It's Not Easy Being Green" which Kim and I often have a good laugh to.







Even though we make all of our own soap now using vegetable oil, it would be cool to get my hands on some of these if they were grown locally.  Does anyone know where I can get some in the Melbourne area or even via mail order in Australia?

2010 In Retrospect

This year has been a huge one for my family and I, with more greening activities than ever before. All our goals for this year were achieved in the first half, which was quite an achievement as were all the other additional skills and events we learnt and attended. 

So to refresh my memory and yours, here are the goals we set out to achieve;

Pay down outstanding debt,

Start a 160 kilometre diet,

Use low carbon transportation,

Make soap, and buy none I that haven't made for the year,

Continue my self-education.

Debt Reduction -  We managed to pay off our personal loan that financed our Solar PV system in May, although we still have $3,000 on the bloody credit card again.  Most of it from medical expenses, however we are paying it down quickly and it should be gone in a few months time and be back to zero.

The 160km diet started off well at the height of the summer with most foodstuffs being about to be located within our local zone. As Autumn drew into Winter, it became more difficult to source our daily fare, and had to look further a field. If I really had have been serious, I would have preserved as much food as I possibly could have in the 6 months before I started the challenge. I think that this would have been the only way I would have been able to meet this goal for an entire year. In hindsight, it was a difficult task in this age of just in time logistics and the 3000 mile salad.  I learnt that there are major flaws of the agri-business system that we have all created.  A viewing of the documentary Food Inc helped confirm this, as did the books "The End of Food" by Paul Roberts, and Barbara Kingsolver's work, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. I learnt that it is best to grow your own where you can, and learn the skills necessary to feed yourself.  Still working out where I can put some more garden beds. ;-)

Local transportation aka 'ride a bike', became well entrenched as did walking around our town on weekends. Although my family has only just begun to embrace this, I have walked to the gym and back every weekend except for those it was raining heavily. I found it refreshing and my workout was half over before I arrived!  I have also become a local advocate for public transport, and catch it to work every single day just to prove to others that it is easy and convenient. It is certainly cheaper and less polluting than a car. I ride my bike around town to run small errands, like visiting the library, the pub with my neighbour, and to the chemist if required. By doing this I have found that 50 litres of petrol lasts about a month an a half in my hybrid car, and we rarely have the need to fill it up. Kim has actually dropped fuel as a budget item in our household budget.

Soap making became a hobby for Kim and I, with us making a total of 15 kg of soap over the year. We have only used about half of this personally, and have given away many bars as gifts to friends and family. We also held two soap making workshops for our local sustainable living group.

Sustainable Living Education - As for continuing my education for sustainable living, this was achieved in about May/June when I helped out the ACF with a series of GreenHome Community workshops in Caroline Springs. I gained a lot from the interaction with others, and even gave a few presentations along the way.  Just after these workshops, I thought to myself that I should not limit the education to just this blog, but attempt to educate others through what ever form of media I could get my face in front off.  So I chose video and television as the tool of choice, and contacted Vasili from Vasili’s Garden to get on the show, which is, of course history. A couple of printed interviews also occurred, one in Good Gardening Magazine, The Herald Sun, and a few in our local paper the Melton Weekly. Also out of the blue, the 7PM Project ran an article about Frugal and Green living which was well received by the public. I also made a whopping 32 YouTube videos this year in an endeavour to teach people how to make soap, cheese and home brew beer, all worthwhile skills that are hard to come by.

Kim and I have been kept busy in our spare time helping to run the Melton Sustainable Living Group. With events and workshops throughout the year, I believe all group members have helped to raise awareness in our community, which from just over a year ago was non-existent. I am proud to be one of the founding members and the President for the last couple of years.  We have grown in strength to 23 members who all get along and promote the lifestyle in their own way.

One goal which was not listed was our sustainable living group holding Sustainable House Day at my humble abode. In so far as bang for our buck, this was the best education event we had all year. With over 100 visitors on the day, we managed to spread the word that living a sustainable lifestyle in the suburbs is indeed achievable and worth doing if not for the cost savings alone.

One other exciting event was participating in the Keep Australia Beautiful – Sustainable Cities awards. My blog was nominated as part of the entry for the Melton Shire Council, and even though I did not win that category, it contributed points towards the overall win of Sustainable City 2010 for Victoria! It was a very proud moment indeed, as was being able to represent our town at the National awards for the state of Victoria.

So, was 2010 was a fulfilling and thoroughly enjoyable year with more ups than down?  Too right it was!  We all had a ball, and kept on living and behaving larger than life on our journey towards a sustainable lifestyle.  Most importantly, we had fun.  Especially with Kim calling me a nutter on national television!

Stay tuned on New Years Day for my 2011 goals.  I think they will be a cracker.

Home Made Spaghetti

I am a difficult person to buy a Christmas gift, that I will admit.  As you all know I am not into consumerism, and only buy practical, long lasting items that will help us on our sustainable journey.  It must be either organic, fair trade, ethical, second hand or renewable or just damn useful.  So it makes it really hard for others to buy for me.

Well I am happy to say that Kim's present ticked the boxes this year (as always).  She bought me a pasta machine which is a great addition to our kitchen.  I love fresh pasta, and if made with local ingredients even better.

So today, we made spaghetti!  Here is me and my father with the pasta machine testing it out.

The recipe was extremely simple. 

Place 250gms of white flour and 250gm wholemeal flour (local) in a bowl, make a well and crack in 5 eggs (home grown).  Mix with a fork until most of the moisture is absorbed them kneed with your hands.  The dough should not stick to your hands, and should be even in consistency.  This took about 5 minutes.

Once the dough was nice a firm, I cut off a small piece and ran it through the machine as per the instructions to clean off any excess oil, which I threw away.


Then we cut off a third of the dough, and ran it thought the machine on no. 1.  We ran it though at this setting 5 times, adding a little flour each time, then folding the pasta in half,  and back through again.  It becomes very pliable.

Then we ran it thought once on no. 2 setting, then once on no. 3 setting.  It was about 3mm thick and about 90 cm long.  Just right for lasagne, but we didn't rest on our laurels. 

The manual suggested that we cut the sheets into 25cm lengths, but from trial and error we chose to make them about 45cm or about 15 inches.  Then we swapped the handle over to the spaghetti cutter and run a sheet through it.

It took two of us to make it work.  We got better at it as we progressed, and ended up with some very nice spaghetti.  We found the first run of 25cm too short.

Kim and Norma (Dad's partner) sat at the kitchen table, pulling the strands apart and laying them on a tea towel to dry.  However, this is where we came unstuck.  We put too much on top each other and only the top dried sufficiently to be used in dinner.

The spaghetti that did dry cooked to perfection.  I bought about 6 litres of salted water to the boil, threw in the pasta for 3 minutes, and it was done.  I served it with a home made Bolognase sauce which has the following home grown ingredients in it, onions, garlic, basil, oregano, and zucchini. 


Everyone said that it was the best  and freshest pasta they had ever tasted, and I commented that it was a true family affair.  What other food do you know that could bring everyone into the kitchen to help out? 


Tomorrow, I will grab an old broom handle out of the shed, sand it down and then oil it with olive oil.  I will use this as a drying rack between two chairs and hang the fresh pasta over the pole.  This way it should all dry evenly and be just right.


What a great present!  Thanks Love x.

A Green Festive Wish

A very green Christmas to one and all.

Thanks for reading The Greening of Gavin during 2010.  We are taking a break for the next few days to spend time with family and friends, so I will be back just before the New Year with my end of year wrap-up and 2011 goals.

Happy Holidays from Gavin, Kim and Family x.

Last Minute Christmas Gift Ideas for the Anti-Consumer

For those who celebrate Christmas, here are some last minute gift ideas from an article I wrote for the Caroline Springs Community update, that have a fair-trade and anti-consumer bent.

The Festive Season is all about giving, but in this day and age, things seem way too out of control for me, without any end in sight. I know I am stating the bleeding obvious, but when they start bringing out the Christmas decorations in department stores during the month of October, you really know that things have just gone too far. The blatant commercialisation of the holiday season has been getting longer and stronger each year. As you probably know if you have read my blog, I am against consumerism for the sake of it, which I and many others have labelled as Affluenza.

So here are a few ideas that will help get you off the consumeristic treadmill. Kim and I decided that we wanted to buy gifts that last, and gifts that either help others who produced them to get a fair deal, or give to those who really need our generosity.

Firstly, we choose only fair trade products for each other. Yes, I know that there are an incredible amount of transport emissions because mainly these gifts come from overseas, but I wanted to support the fair trade movement and not some giant corporation. We bought some of our gifts at New Internationalist Fair trade shop on-line. Use your favourite search engine to track them down. Not only do you get a great product that is built to last, you guarantee a fair price for products that are not a handout, but also helps encourage self reliance within that community. We have also bought some gifts at the Oxfam shop (www.oxfamshop.org.au) which is also sells fair trade goods. So we bought minimal gifts with all proceeds going to people who most need our money. The quality of the products is outstanding and you know that these handcrafted items have been made with care and attention to detail.  Oxfam also have a program called Oxfam Unwapped, which is kind of like the program that I am about to describe from World Vision.

Secondly, instead of going absolutely crazy with gifts you can give a gift to someone who really needs it. World Vision has a campaign called Smiles, whereby you visit their website and buy a gift for someone else in need! What a fantastic concept. You can buy something as small as water purifications tablets for $5, or a house reconstruction kit for $1345! From mozzie nets to chickens, ducks, pigs, goats, donkeys or cows, the gift ideas are massive.

So how does it work? Do World Vision pack a goat in a box and ship it overseas? NO, that would be cruel. So, if you buy a duck or a market garden starter pack, for example, your contribution will go towards their agriculture and environment work to help communities grow food for families and restore and improve their environments. Or if you buy a mosquito net or a toilet, you’ll be contributing to their work to help communities gain access to basic healthcare, water and sanitation. You also receive a card which you give to the reciepient, to let them know about the gift you have chosen.

So this year, think outside the box you live in, and consider some of these options to help those who, without your help, will probably go without the simplest of life's necessities, let alone a present this festive season.

The choice is yours alone. You can give socks and jocks to someone who has everything, or a present that really means the world to someone. I reckon they are not only suitable for last minute gifts, but for corporate presents as well! What a great Chris Kringle present to give a work colleague.

Green seasons greetings to one and all,

Gavin, Kim and Family

Adapting To Change

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."- Charles Darwin

Some will adapt, many will not, because to adapt, you must see the change coming!

I overheard this on the train this morning.   "A white Christmas in Australia.  That's funny! (laughter heard)".  My thoughts at the time were "That is bloody hilarious love, but that is climate change for you, and you still have no idea what is coming down the line."

It was as if climate change was a forgone conclusion, with no action required.  Just go for the ride, so to speak.  Well, I suppose in a way it is.  With 2 degrees of warming already locked in and tipping points rapidly approaching, the train is unequivocally heading towards the end of the tracks at a runaway velocity with no-one at the brake lever to slow it down.  Heads up their arses or in the sand.

After a record spell of drought in many parts of Australia, we now have floods and torrential rains, and even snow in the high country only one week before Christmas Day in the south eastern part of the country.  Now snow in December may seem normal to those readers in the northern hemisphere, but it is far from a normal climactic pattern here south of the equator in Summer no less.  We should be dressing shorts and sandals, having barbecues every weekend!  I have never seen it so cold here in summer.  To put it in perspective, this time last year we were swimming every day, eating tomatoes, and having fun in the sun.  Not so this year.  All winter crops have gone a month or two longer than normal, spring planting was delayed due to the colder start to spring.  With yesterday being summer solstice here in the south, the climate is anything but normal or summer like.

The seasons have been progressively moving out of kilter by a few months.  This article in The Age newspaper titled "Facing the hard local realities of a warming world", really struck home with me, and confirmed what I have been observing all around me.  Adapt or not, that is the question.

In relation to this issue, I feel helpless.  I can see the changes and am trying to do something constructive about it, but most around me don't give a shit, nor look like they have the same sense of urgency about them as I do.  Maybe I am either ahead of my time, or just plain wacko?  As for the UN climate talks, it looked like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  Too little, too late, or in my own words I liken it to pissing into the wind.  Do it long enough and some will splash back on your legs!  Guess what folks, it is now splashing back and we are having a lot of trouble stopping the flow.

Waiting for governments to act doesn't work.  Waiting for corporations to change doesn't work and neither does waiting for 'the market' to miraculously save us.  

What hope do we have, when all I see is hopelessness and inaction?

Well, I will tell you what gives me hope.  People who read this unusual blog give me hope because I realise that you are here because you want to learn how to make simple changes to your lives, and of course you put up with my ramblings.  If I also make some kind of sense, then I will take that as a bonus!

I gain hope when new members join our local sustainable living group, so that they can learn survival skills and want to help educate others.  My children give me hope, because I know that they understand that it will be them who have to continue the work long after I am gone.  After all, they are the generation to come that I talk so often about.

Hope comes from people like you and I, who make this issue personal to our friends and family, who then take actions themselves.  We are all influential in our own special way.  What we do and say matters to them.  Making it personal is a powerful motivator.

We just have to influence faster.  Spread the message of hope and the message that we can change behaviours for the better before tipping point happen.  Tell friends and family about the great personal sustainable living actions that you have taken, even if you don't think it is important in the grand scheme of things.  Trust me, your actions are important to you and to them.

Together we can lower greenhouse gas emissions below 350 part per million, where it should be.  This is the challenge I put to you, my readers.  Act now, tell others about the solutions, and together we can adapt not to the effects of catastrophic climate change, but to a better way of living.

Gavin x

Waxing The Wensleydale

Sounds a bit rude doesn't it, but it is exactly what the title means.  I have written a post over at the Simple, Green, and Frugal Co-op about waxing cheese and the basic steps you take to stop your hard cheeses from drying out as they mature.

It is quite simple, but worth a read.  Please join me on the post titled "Waxing Cheese"

Native Echidna Caught on Camera

The WWF in conjunction with Greening Australia has set up motion sensors on cameras in Northam, WA, about 100km west of Perth.  Have a look at the video below to see what they have found.






From the WWF site;

"WWF staff have been using motion-triggered cameras (better known as camera traps) to capture images of a range of wildlife, including seldom-seen animals. The Healthy Bushland team has found that camera traps are creating new interest and passion amongst landholders, and are helping to show just how important it is to preserve these valuable remnants of bushland in WA’s wheatbelt."

What fantastic animals!  I have only seen Echidnas in the zoo or at Healsville Sanctuary.  The video may only be 41 seconds, but it made an impact on me!

Cherry Jam

What do you do when your friend Jan gives you a 20 litre bucket full of cherries of various grades for free?

Well you spend an hour sorting through them, keeping the split ones for jam, and the good ones for eating.  Unfortunately, all of the rotten ones, which was about a quarter of the bucket, went in the compost bin.  Such a shame.

So on to the jam making.  Here is about 1.5kg of cherries that were water damaged, with just splits in them that had not turned rotten yet.  They still tasted very nice.

So here was my little system to pit them.  One small bowl for the pits and stems, One medium bowl for the halves and a very sharp little knife.

So here is the recipe and method which I adopted from the back of the Jamsetta packet:

Gav's Cherry Jam.

Ingredients.

1kg washed and pitted cherries
1kg white sugar (warmed)
50 gm packet of Jamsetta (pectin)
4 tablespoons of Lemon Juice
1 quarter cup water

1.  Place the cherries in a large saucepan and mash with a potato masher to release the juices.  Add the water and lemon juice and cook gently, uncovered until the fruit is soft.
Note: the pan should be large enough so that the fruit and sugar should not occupy greater the 1/3 of the pan's capacity.  It increases in volume when it boils.
2.  Add the Jamsetta and warmed sugar (place in an oven proof bowl in a oven @150C for 6 minutes), heat gently until dissolved, stirring constantly.  Bring to a rolling boil and boil for 10 minutes stirring occasionally.
3.  To test for a set.   Place a saucer in the freezer for 5 minutes, remove.  Place a level teaspoon of jam on the saucer and leave for 30 seconds.  Run finger through jam and if set, it should crinkle.  If not boil for a further 3 minutes and test again.  My jam set at 13 minutes boiling.
4.  Once gel point is achieved, remove jam from heat and stand for 10 minutes.  Pour into sterilised, warm, dry jars and seal.

And there you go.  4 cups of the best cherry jam you ever did taste.  I didn't skim the pink fluffy stuff from the jam as I liked the taste of it.  I had some on my toast for breakfast and it was to die for.  Even Kim agreed that it was the best jam I have ever made.  I think I will give up using the bread-maker for jam, as you have far more control over the gel point doing it the real way.  A far superior jam and flavour.

A Scaly Tale

Here is my first attempt at a children's story for adults, with a sustainable living bent!  Hope you like it.

---

Once upon a time there was a little chicken called Poppy.  Poppy is a Pekin Bantam chicken, and she was very cute.  She and her 7 other chicken friends lived with a kind man and his family, who loved them all very much, and liked all of the fresh eggs that the chickens laid every day.

One day Poppy woke up and noticed that her legs had a small patch of white scale on them.  This went unnoticed by the man because the scale was hidden under Poppy's feet feathers.  Soon, some of the other hens noticed scale on their legs as well.  Whatever it was, thought Poppy, it was spreading fast.

A week later, the man also noticed the white flaky skin on some of the larger hens legs.  He knew that it was called Scaly Leg Mites, and if left untreated, it could cause pain, itchiness and lumps.  Not very nice for a chicken to have.

So, the man waited until dark when the chickens were fast asleep in their house, and one at a time, he and his wife gently sprayed each of the chicken's legs with cooking oil spray.  He knew that this oil would suffocate the mites and help the chickens get better again.

In the morning, Poppy and her friends began to notice that their legs were not as itchy as the day before.  Within a week all of the chickens were much better.  The nice man continued to spray their legs once a week for a month until the nasty little mites were gone.  He wanted to make sure that they chickens were happy again, because he loved them very much.

Once they were all better, Poppy and her friends thanked the man and his family by laying lots of lovely eggs every day, for a very long time.  Everybody lived happily ever after.

The End.

Not So Weekly Podcast - Sustainability with Amy

This weeks episode is an interview with Amy, my 21 year old daughter who paid us a visit today.  She was the lass that I was showing around the front yard in the TV article yesterday, and it was her hands you saw opening the cheese fridge.

Powered by Podbean.com

Frugal and Green on the 7PM Project

For all my international readers, here is the edited TV show.  I hope you enjoy it as much as my Aussie readers.  The blog counter has gone crazy!





Yours in Frugally Greenness

Gav

10 Ways to Start Living the Frugal Life

Welcome to the Greening of Gavin!

As I mentioned in the post titled "Frugal vs Green", the two choices are somewhat compatable. So to take the frugal theme further, I beleive that these 10 steps have helped us reach both of these goals. They will not only help you reduce your environmental footprint, but save you money as well.

1. Create and Maintain a Household Budget

Creating a budget may not sound like the most exciting thing in the world to do, however it is vital in keeping your finances and your life under control.  You can't be Frugal or green if your finances are out of control.  I have not yet written about how we budget, so this will be the first new post on my to-do list.  However, I did write a post about "Seriously Saving Money"

2. Make friends with your local library

Libraries are great places to visit.  Please read this post titled "Libraries are Cool and Free"

3. Cook at home, and avoid takeaways

Checkout my series about my 160km diet and how we lived locally as much as we can.  This includes many great recipes for seasonal fare.

4. Plan your trips

What I mean by this is don't spend all day driving around running errands, when a well planned trip can achieve the same outcome.  You spend less petrol if you drive, or energy if you ride a bike.

5. Make your own cleaning products

I use bicarb and vinegar for most cleaning duties, and we make our own soap from vegetable oils and lye.

6. Take public transport
Public transportation is cheaper and produces far less carbon emissions than a car.  You can read about my thoughts about the cost difference of the two at this post titled "Peak Oil in the Media and Raising Peak Oil Awareness (Kind of)"

7. Reuse
I built a chook house from disguarded materials, and reused some old studs to make a wicking bed.  We try and think of a use for most things before we consider recycling it.

8. Grow some of your own foodI have an extensive food garden, including 8 vegetable beds, and 26 fruit trees.

9. Turn off a light

We practice energy efficiency, and here is a post on how to reduce your electricity consumption in a phased approach.  The post is titled, "Eco House Challenge Electricity 1 and Eco House Challenge Electricity 2"  We also make most of our own electricity with 16 solar panels on our carport roof.

10. Visit an Op or Thrift shop

A visit to an op shop is like going back and becoming a kid in a lolly shop all over again.  Most things at charity shops and the like are well made (or they would be in landfill), and are cheaper than you can get brand new.  I always find lots of useful stuff whenever I visit Vinnies or the Salvos!



All of the above steps can be frugal and green at the same time, with each one of them being achievable within a short time frame. Hey, if I can do it, anyone can. The only piece of advice I will give is that you should not try and tackle all of these steps at once! Maybe two or three, but try and complete the very first step of budgetting, and the rest will fall into place as you go along.

For those steps that have links, please feel free to ask questions, with one proviso. Instead of posting the comment on the original post, please comment with your questions on this one only. This way, we can share all of the answers with all readers. Sharing knowledge is a powerful tool, and I love to share skills and things that I have learnt on my journey towards a sustainable lifestyle.

For the few steps that I have not written anything previously, I will, over the next week or so, fill in the gaps with posts targeting that specific step.

Now, a bit about navigation around the site. Basically, what you see is what you get. The main blog themes are located on the title bar above, the tutorials and YouTube videos are on the right sidebar, as is the archive of all my posts. If you want to start from the very begining (there are over 750 articles), go to the archive and work your way forward.

It has been a fantastic journey as I strive to green up my life and that of my family's.  It is far from being over, and we enjoy every single moment on this Earth of ours.  As long, of course, as we treat it with respect and make it a better place for our children and future generations to come.

Enjoy!

The Last Laugh

Today, during lunch I observed some unusual behaviour.  I went for my normal lunchtime walk, this time visiting a pond near the JFK Memorial within Treasury Gardens in Melbourne.  It is very nice as you can see below.  Note the bench seats that feature further down in the post.

Even though the park is not a naturally occurring environment, there are still plenty of wild birds that live there.  I noticed last week that a few native ducks had given birth to ducklings, and I was keen to check on their progress.  As I approached the pond, I quickly noticed the little ducklings and their mother basking in the sunshine on the stone edging of the pond.  I stopped about 2 metres (6") away from them and just watched and began to enjoy their ducky antics.  A big smile formed on my face as about 20 small ducks that had just finished grazing on the lush grass in the park, made their way to the pond in a big group.  This group split like the Red Sea around my legs, oblivious to my presence, and proceed to jump into the pond looking for water bugs and the like.

Just as the last duck had jumped in, a Suit, sporting an iPod with music blaring, tried to rush past and would have stepped on the still dozing ducklings, if I hadn't called out to him.  He jumped in fright probably because he was in his own little bubble, stopped, swore at me, then swore at the ducks!  What right did the ducks have to be in his way when he was obviously in such a rush to eat his lunch and get back to his mundane existence?  What a prat! Such an apathetic attitude grinds my gears.  No wonder the planet is in such a mess with his ilk around.

Anyway, iPod arrogant people aside, the ducks had the last laugh.  A splinter group of 3 of the small ducks formed off from the main group seeking more food.  Next to the pond were two bench seats made of wooden slats.  Some female humans were eating lunch and were talking loudly about general consumerism and crap they were going to buy for Christmas on their credit cards.  Perfect targets for ducky activists seeking a little payback for duck kind.  As these humans were so engrossed in themselves and indifferent about the environment about them, they never saw it coming.  Two of the small ducks waddled under the bench searching for spiders and other insects.  There must have been rich pickings because they started pecking at the bottom of the bench rapidly.  So rapidly in fact, that they both reached in-between the slats of the bench seat and pecked the two ladies simultaneously on their derrière.   The yelp and scream of terror could be heard across the gardens!  The splinter group scampered back into the pond for safety sake, and swam back to the main pack. 

As the screams from the unsuspecting victims died down, another loud raucous began.  It was me, pissing myself laughing at the spectacle.  The two ladies then stared daggers at me, as if it were my fault and stormed off in a huff.  Once my sides split and the ruckus died down a little, I took stock of the situation.  It suddenly struck me.  This was not just about ducks, but nature as a whole.  Our apathy towards it should be a cautionary one as it is more powerful than us.  The environment is not some abstract place out there somewhere.  We are a part of it, but most cannot see the forest for the trees, or in this case, the ducks.

I came to the sobering conclusion. 

"Nature always has the last laugh, irrespective of the actions humans take, or the indifference they give it."

Slight Delay on Telly

Just a quickie tonight.  The story about Frugal and Simple living that was shot here at my house has been delayed one day.

It now airs on Wednesday, 15th December on Network Ten at 7pm.

Gav

Green Lawnmower Man

As I have no lawn on my property, I decided to give my petrol lawn mower that rarely got used, to my daughter Amy as a gift.  She was after one for her new place in Ballarat, so I thought it best not to increase the fossil fuel burning mower population of the world by one more.

Now, I still have a nature strip that must be mowed as per local laws, and I wanted to be a green as I possibly could, so I went old school.  I hunted in the second hand shops for a serviceable hand mower but to no avail.

So, off to the hardware store to see what I could find.  I picked one up for just under $150 which I thought was a bargain.  It weighs only 8kg and is light as a feather to push.  It has a great motion and I was surprised about how well it actually cut the grass.  I bought a catcher to go with it, but should not have bothered.  The grass clippings will help the lawn to thicken and retain moisture.  But the most fantastic thing is that I am so excited about is that I never need fuel again!  Slowly but surely, I am kicking the carbon habit.  Less emissions can only mean happy smiles from Gaia.

Anyway, Ben took heaps of great photos, so I have strung them together in this short video.  Watch the Green Lawnmower Man in action, with his faithful sidekick Ben the Assistant!

Love Like A Leek

One picture is better than one thousand words.

Gavin and Kim in the garden, if we were leeks!  Isn't love grand?

If Oprah Turned Green?

What if Oprah decided to turn green?  Not just a light shade of green, but dark Kermit the frog green.  She may have already, and she definitely promotes it on her website, but I really don't know.

However, if she did it for real and not just rhetoric, then amazing things would happen.  If I have learn anything from the media circus that has been following her around during her visit to Australia, that is that Oprah and her entourage are very, very influential amongst the people of many western nations.  Hey, she even has our Prime Minister in her spell, and I believe she interviewed the US President more than once.  This influence can be, and is a very powerful tool, which I think Oprah wields in a deliberate way.  Everything or everyone that she endorses becomes an overnight sensation and very popular with the masses.

Which leads me to my question.  Just imagine, if you will, an awakened Oprah who begins to take real baby steps towards a sustainable lifestyle.  People would follow her in droves, mimicking her every action and make a start to reducing their own environmental footprints.  If that was not enough, if Oprah sustained this behaviour on her shows, then the groundswell would be noticed by politicians who would be very nervous that they were not being seen as doing something by popular consensus of the masses, would actually begin to take climate change seriously and set emission reduction targets and meet them with help of the now aware masses.

With Oprah leading the way, even the worst political leader would look good if they jumped on the bandwagon.  Even the entire United Nations would follow by finally negotiating a binding climate agreement and all fully fund the required actions.  Success at last, and all because Oprah turned green.  What a wonderful place the planet would become!

Now, we just have to convince her that this is a good idea.  Does anyone have any suggestions, besides me writing her a great email?  Do you think my cunning plan would work, or would the masses tire of it quickly.

How to Store Garlic

Many of my fellow bloggers have written about their garlic crops of late, but I am replying to a reader comment from my post titled "Keep The Vampires From Your Door!"

Toria wrote:

Hi Gavin, nice garlic crop. Can you please do a follow post showing what to do with the garlic next? How do you clean off all the dirt, how do you dry, best way to store, that kind of thing.

Well Toria, firstly I dried them out until the stalks were yellow and dry.  This only took a week.  As we have had so much rain this year, I had to pull the bulbs when some of the stalks were green, because I didn't want them to rot in the ground, which you all would have seen in the original post.

Then I tied them up in bunches with some twine, and then strung up a piece of rope in the garage and hung the bunches over the rope.  This will let them dry out a little longer, and then I can just cut them off as I need them.

However, I know that it gets really hot under the garage in summer, so in a couple of weeks, I will cut them all down, trim the roots and stalks off, lightly brush off any remaining dirt, and store them in the pantry on the floor in a big wicker basket so that there is plenty of air flow.

I found that using this method last year, the bulbs stored well into Autumn, when they began to sprout again.  I knew it was then time to plant the next crop.  I will keep the 5 biggest bulbs for next year to plant again, and use all the rest in cooking.  There is nothing quite like the taste of fresh garlic.  Much better than that imported, tasteless crap that has been through hell and back to get to the supermarket.

My Cherry

Now don't get any rude ideas from the title of this post.  It is quite innocent as the picture will attest.

The dwarf Stella Cherry tree that I planted two years ago in the front orchard has borne fruit.  Well one single fruit anyway.  Here it is in all its glory.  What a lovely colour!  No bugs on this tree, it is very clean.

Here is the one large cherry in Kim's hand, just before she bit into it.  Being a kind wife, she did save half for me of course.  It was the best cherry I have ever tasted, however I am very biased.

The tree has doubled in size this year and it is still growing, so next year, all being well, will be a bumper crop of delicious red cherries.  I love fruit trees!

Layers Like An Onion

Back in June I took a picture of the onions that I planted in April.  This is what they looked like way back then.

 

Nice, small little seedlings.  Who would have thought that the bed would look like this 5 months later?

 

Just a little larger!  Compare them with the original seedlings with the width of the irrigation hose.

This one in particular was the size of a house brick.  Whoppers due to all the rain we have had this winter.

All these onions were from the same bed.  I have laid them out to dry on two tables so that I can store them over summer and into winter.  Click on the photo to enlarge and see just how big they really are.  I planted Hunter brown and Spanish red varieties, all which were successful as you can see.  Kim said today that they are the most impressive crop of onions she has ever seen!  I am chuffed to bits with the result.

Finally, this is the bed all clear, and waiting a few days before I plant out some more tomatoes, eggplant and capsicum that I have ready to put straight in on Saturday morning. 

All those onions from just 2.4 square metres of garden bed.  I have a theory as to why they were so large.

A.  The rain of course
B.  I grew the seedlings in the greenhouse first and planted them out after two months.
C.  I spaced the seedlings at regular intervals in each row.  No single onion was closer than any other.

I believe that C had more to do with their size.  No crowding, which has always been my problem in the past.  I have found that if I plant directly in the bed, that I am too frightened to thin them out adequately, and always leave them far to close together.  By growing the onion seeds in punnets, and transplanting them, I was able to overcome this issue.

I am going to do the same again next year, and hopefully achieve another bumper crop.  Oh, and one last thing.  Do not fertilise the bed before you plant.  Onions don't need any additional help.

Just like Ogres, hey donkey!

Filming at TGOG House

As I mentioned previously, the 7PM Project on Network Ten came to visit today.  They were doing a piece on Frugal and Green living.  They arrived at 9am and left about noon.

The entire family has had a fun day today.  Everyone had a go in front of the camera, even Kim, who emphatically resisted until the Field Producer, Margie sweet talked her into a session by herself.

Here is the film crew with Hayden on camera, Margie with the brolly and me doing an imitation of Mary Poppins!  Click to enlarge, its a crack up.

Suffice to say, we filmed everything, garden, fruit trees, vegetables, soap, cheese, bread, solar PV, you name it, we did it.  A great morning, with a very fun crew.

Margie told me that the segment will air on Tuesday, 14th December on Network Ten all around Australia.  I wonder how many hits I will get on the blog that day?  I will record and just edit the segment and bung it up on YouTube for those who live internationally.

Now into the garden to harvest some big fat onions!

Henrietta's Dilema

My Dad sent me this cartoon yesterday.  I liked it so much I had to post it, and damn the copyright.  Think of it as advertising for free.

Classic.  I can just see Bunty doing this in a few years time!

Encouraging Solar Feedback

Just thought I would share this email with you that I received from a reader a couple of weeks back in reply to the post The Rise of Shonky Solar.  The post was quite harsh and I got some of my facts wrong especially regarding East or Westerly facing roofs.  I will check my facts more thoroughly next time, I promise.

The email is from Ruthy in Western Australia, who gave me permission to reproduce it here, and it has given me the encouragement to keep writing about all Solar PV. 

Hi Gavin,

Just to share a positive story about photo voltaic power.  We live in Perth WA.  We had a 1.5 kW system installed last year.  We have only recently seen returns from it as the amount paid for putting back into the grid has only just gone up to a reasonable amount (I think it’s now 47 cents per kWh were as previously it was 7cents!)  Our system couldn’t face North because the roof wouldn’t allow it and it faces East instead.  At the end of the day the roof is partly shaded by a large tree branch and this just cuts the power down to nothing so we are looking at this for future (e.g. trim tree).  There are only 2 of us and we very frugal by nature so our bills are low ( about $70 a bill).  I read your blog entry the other week and only just learnt that it is better financially to use power at night.  So I now vacuum only once a week and during the evening and same with washing machine.  We have just had a bill and we are really pleased as we have made enough power to pay the bill as well as generate a $50 credit.  We are hoping in the long run to not have to pay money at all for our electric as the credits in spring? summer will hopefully cover the winter/autumn when there is less sun.  However the money paid for returning power to the grid only lasts for 10 years so we will have to plan something (don’t know what!) for the longer term.  In WA there is still a grant for solar power.  It’s about $5,000.

Many Thanks

Ruthy 

PS love the blog!  Thanx for all the info you share : )

Well done Ruthy.  Better in your pocket than the electricity retailers. 

It is fantastic feedback to me that I have made a difference to help lower their electricity bills via my tip about usage times when participating in a feed-in tariff scheme.  I makes my heart glow like the Sun!

Frugal vs Green

Out of the blue I was asked on Friday to appear on a national TV show on Network Ten called 7PM Project.  They would like to do a segment on frugal living, which I agreed to of course.  Seeing that I am one of the writers at the Simple, Green, Frugal Cooperative, I think that will be simple enough to get the message across.  Filming is this Wednesday, and I will let the Australian readers know when it will be aired.  Apparently, Melissa of Frugal and Thriving blog passed on my name to the producers.  Thanks Melissa! :)

Then I started thinking, as I do.  How does one compare a frugal lifestyle to a sustainable lifestyle that I strive to live.  Are the two actually compatible?  Lets investigate further, shall we?

My definition of sustainable living is one that lowers inputs and outputs with a view of reducing your environmental footprint.  A frugal lifestyle, on the other hand, is one that attempts to reduce your outputs of cash, whilst still living a happy and simple life or other words live within your means. Well, even though the objectives are somewhat different, the outcome is nearly the same.

To put it into perspective, my grandparents and parents were very fugal.  I remember as a child, both Mum and Nanna used to make jam, preserve fruit, repair clothes, make dresses, cook all meals for the family, not waste anything, save leftovers, keep anything that looked useful and found a use for it.  Both Dad and Grandpa grew fruit and vegetables, worked on a modest dairy farm and took care of livestock.  We always had fresh chicken and duck eggs, lamb, beef and of course dairy products that were all ethically cared for and slaughtered when necessary to put on the table.  They even had names for all the cows.  Their carbon emissions were quite low, they rarely drove cars, all kids rode bikes to school and everywhere else mind you, hardly used electricity, and all other food was sourced locally.  That sounds very much what I have tried to recreate in my own family's lifestyle.  Life in the past was frugal and most probably quite green.  Even most families in the city had a backyard veggie patch and chickens, and most had a fruit tree or two.

So what about today?  Can frugal still be green like it was in the past?  I believe that it can, but only if you are selective in what you buy.  This is mainly because of the way our present food system works.  A trip to the supermarket will confirm this.  Cheap canned beef from Brazil, Ham from Denmark and France, canned pineapple from Hawaii, canned beans and crab meat from Thailand.  Even the frozen fish in the deli is rarely locally caught.  Fresh food is imported in the form of oranges from Argentina or California, Cherries from the USA, Ya Pears from China, Kiwifruit from New Zealand etc,.  Food miles and carbon emissions galore, and not very green nor sustainable.  There are no longer any seasons, and you may only notice a drop in the price of fresh food when a glut in the market is caused by over production all throughout Australia.

Same goes for manufactured goods.  With a flood of cheap plastic crap from China that adorns the $2 shop shelves at Christmas time, discount variety stores are a frugal shoppers haven.

So, in my opinion, to be frugal and green today, you would have to avoid discount variety stores, buy local food in season and preserve the excess, or grow lots of your own.  Even a farmers market is fairly cheap and has local fare.  Of course, it goes without saying that all the other frugal ways would still apply.  Like repairing in lieu of replacing, living within your means, shopping second hand, cooking your own meals, bake bread, knit stuff, essentially all the nanna technology that helped our grandparents survive.

In summary, frugal vs green is not really that different if you are aware of the environmental impact of your frugality, and as with leading a green or sustainable lifestyle, less consumption means that you would be able to live within your means, and live a balanced, happy and fulfilling lifestyle.

Does anyone disagree or can see flaws in my logic?

Wensleydale Cheese Making Tutorial

As I have mentioned previously, last weekend was a cheesy one.  You have already seen the Feta tutorial, so here is the tutorial I made for Wensleydale.  It is up there with my favourite cheese Caerphilly and on a scale of 1 to 10, I give it a 9.5 especially when you hit that layer of sage in your first mouthful!  The only down side of this cheese is the 8 hours it takes from milk to mould.  Well worth it if you have a rainy day and can't think of anything else to do.

You can find the recipe that I used at this post titled, Wensleydale Recipe and Method.

Here is a bit about the cheese itself.   Wensleydale cheese is a firm and slightly flaky cheese but not dry and crumbly, in fact quite the reverse, its moist and quite succulent with a melt in the mouth forte to it. Slightly sweet but not that it is immediately noticeable and with no after-taste, Wensleydale is perfect to accompany all fresh fruits including apples, pears, grapes, grapefruit and strawberries to name but a few.

Also nice with a glass of light wine, or a cold beer with a Wensleydale ploughman's lunch, Wensleydale is also great on rye or crackers.









No wonder Wallace and Gromit like it so much! 

On a side note.  Kim and I tried some of the Feta that we made and the verdict is in.  A very tasty cheese, with a creamy texture, with a mild flavour.  Great cut into cubes and put on crackers with a few pickled onions on the plate.

Enjoy Wensleydale!

And This Is What I Was On About...

... when I wrote this post.  Not only have we locked in 2 degrees of warming, but as the permafrost melts in Alaska, Canada, and Russia, the methane pours out and creates a feedback loop.  Methane has a Greenhouse Warming Potential of 25, which means it is 25 times more potent than Carbon Dioxide.  Watch for yourself.








Shit!  If the negotiators at Cancun have not seen this, then they need to read my blog or many like it.  This is very scary stuff, and reinforcement that positive feedback loops are happening now, and Gaia is not waiting for humans to make up their minds if they are going to cut carbon emissions by 5% or 40% by 2020.  We are experiencing catastrophic climate change right fucking now!

Sorry for the language, but this is scary stuff.

Keep The Vampires From Your Door!

I believe that garlic is one of the simplest vegetables to grow in your garden during winter.  I also believe that once you have had fresh garlic grown in your own garden you will not buy garlic from the supermarket or green grocer ever again unless it is organic and locally grown.  Never again will I eat rubbery garlic without any flavour imported from a foreign country.

You can grow it too.  Growing your own garlic is simple, easy and very low maintenance.

Planting is also easy.  In my climate zone, (heat zone 4, cold zone 10), I plant just after the first full moon in March or April.  I find that the soil is still just warm enough so that the garlic shoots quickly and gets a good start.  Take a decent sized garlic bulb, either from your seed provider or organic grocer and pull off the individual cloves.  Only use the fattest cloves, as these will give you the largest bulbs.  Use the smaller inside cloves in your next meal.  This year I planted 5 bulbs of soft and hardneck garlic, and as recommended above, only the largest cloves.

When preparing the bed for planting, don't add any fertiliser to the bed if you did so in the summer.  You will get more leaves and smaller bulbs.  Plant the garlic in a bed that you had a very hungry crop before hand, like brassicas or tomatoes.

Make a hole with your dibber (I use a bit of old sawn off broom handle) about 2" deep (5cm) and then place each clove in the hold pointy end facing upwards.  Plant them about 6" (15cm) apart, so that you get good sized bulbs.  The closer they are to each other the smaller the bulbs.  Click to enlarge.

Back fill the holes and water well.  Within about 4-6 days they will send up the first green shoots through the soil.  All you need to do is keep the soil moist for the rest of the season, and keep the bed weed free.  Easy peasy!

Around mid winter, I apply a couple of handfuls of blood and bone fertiliser to the bed and water in.  This gives them a boost as they are beginning to form the bulbs just before the start of spring.  This is what they look like after about a month and a half.

In late spring (depending on your heat zone) the big stalks start to go yellow and fall over.  This is the sign that your garlic is ready to harvest.  So come harvest time this is what you should see in the bed.

Note that the tops are falling over and going yellow.  This is the sign that they are ready to harvest.

This is the bed after the harvest.  Make sure you find them all.  Last year I missed some and they grew again in Autumn.  I pulled them and put them in my designated garlic patch for this season.  They grew very well.

Here is the harvested garlic laid out on a big towel on my deck.  It has been so wet of late that I even picked the green topped ones, because I was afraid that the entire crop would rot in the ground. The deck was the only dry place and elevated place I had outdoors.  Every other place has a small creek flowing through it as some time or another.

Needless to say, there are some bloody big bulbs of garlic this year due to all the rain we have had.

Some almost as big as my hand.  These garlic are not, I repeat not Russian Elephant garlic, which is really a form of leek.  These are normal everyday purple garlic that I saved from last years crop.

As I mentioned, garlic is easy, maintenance free and simple to grow over the Australian autumn, winter and spring.  When harvested in spring, once dry, it will last until late winter the next year before trying to sprout again.  That is of course unless you eat it all first!

At least if you know that if you  grow garlic the following may occur (one of Kim's favourite 80's songs);

"I will protect you from the hooded claw,
Keep the vampires from your door,
When the chips are down, I'll be around,
With my undying, death-defying,
Love for you"
(ode to The Power of Love by Frankie goes to Hollywood).

Planning to Fail

When you coach a high performing sports team, the last thing you would say to them before a game would be something like, "Fella's, I don't have very high expectations of your performance going into this game, so just letting you know that I have told all your fans that you probably will not win!"  This statement would stick in the players minds during the entire game and they would most likely loose to the other team.

Well, unfortunately, this is exactly what some leaders have done to the negotiating teams who represent each country at the COP16 UN Climate Change conference at Cancun, Mexico.  The media has been full of stories about leaders telling their citizens to not expect much of an outcome at these negotiations.  Therefore, in effect they have, by proxy, told their main negotiating team not to try very hard at achieving an outcome.  negative reinforcement and preposterous, arse covering, political behaviour if you ask me.  What concerns me most is that the majority of the big greenhouse gas (GHG) emitting nations have gone in with the same opening stance.

So what will that give us.  Well, I'll tell you what I think.  A conference full of negotiators expecting to fail, except for a handful of countries who's mere existence is in jeopardy i.e. low laying island nations.  They are fighting for the survival of their culture and society.  Generations of people had owned the land before them, but they will be unable to pass it on to their children due to rising sea levels.  If it were me faced with the same prospect, I would do the same.  Fight the good fight, and try and convince the other recalcitrant nations to forget about borders, and start thinking about humanity as a whole.  That is what is really at stake.

So that brings me back to negotiations.  I believe that many countries are treating this UN Climate conference like trade negotiations.  Let me try to explain by what I mean.  Each country seeks concessions for emission reduction targets at each meeting, hoping to build upon those concessions each time they get together.  With trade negotiations, after many years of talks and concession negotiation, agreements are made, and leaders ratify the treaty/agreement.  The only problem with using the same methodology for climate negotiations is that we just don't have 10-20 years to negotiate a satisfactory outcome.  We can't wait for this petty political processes. 

The science tells us that we should have acted well before now and should already be reducing emissions to avoid a 2 degrees Celsius rise in global average temperatures.  However, we are not.  2 degrees of warming is now locked in and unpreventable.  Emissions are again reaching record highs after the temporary blip as a result of the Global Financial Crisis.  Even if we began to drastically reduce our GHG emissions as a result of a miraculous deal struck at Cancun, the fact of the matter is that we have drastically change the world we live in, one that now has unpredictable climate, an approaching energy crisis, and will be a struggle to survive on for our children and their offspring.  This is the first time in history that a few generations have left the entire planet in worse shape than when they arrived in it and are not willing to make amends.

Sad, disappointing, depressing, but this is how I see things unfolding over the next two weeks!