The Greening of Gavin

Archives for May 2012

Personal Time Management

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So many people ask me where I get the time to do all the things that I do.  I have been giving it a lot of thought of late, because everyone who asks me also adds that they are so time starved, that they could not possibly achieve half of what I have on my average suburban house block.

Now I am not going to regurgitate reams of tips from time management books, because in my opinion I have gained little from the ones that I have read, and they are full of unachievable rubbish.  There is only one thing, in my humble opinion, that will give you back the time that you think you have lost.

Live life with purpose.  

By that statement, I mean that by setting achievable goals, making simple plans, then acting upon those plans.  This is a life lived with purpose.  So little time wasted, and so much achieved.  It worked for me!

Okay, I fibbed.  I do have one more tip that I live by.

Do your brain a favour and turn off display screens more often, mainly TV, computer games and Facebook.  It gives you time to think for yourself.

You will be amazed how much time you get back in your life.  Just think, by acting on those plans and reaping the rewards, you will rarely be bored, and not seek the mindless garbage spewing out of the idiot box.  A simple philosophy, but one I believe to be true (except for Star Trek of course).

Before someone says that they have to use a screen to read this blog, and I used one to write it, remember that reading and writing this blog (and researching for it) are my goals (and probably yours as well) and therefore purposeful acts.  I do, however, appreciated the irony!

Opinions please?  Do you think that I am over simplifying?

An eBook Or Two

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Yes dear readers, just when you thought I didn’t have time to do anything else around here, I decided to write and publish a few eBooks!  People keep telling me that I have a flare with the written word and a distinctive writing style, so I figured that the natural progression was an eBook.

I am in the process of putting together the first one which should take me a few weeks, based on the first few months of my journey.  It will document how I lived before my epiphany, what happened that fateful day, and the beginning of the journey.  I expect that it will be less than 100 pages long, and I will self publish it via Amazon and Smashwords so that it will be available for most eBook readers.

Afterwards,  I am planning to write a series of sustainable living ‘How To’ eBooks that will be for sale for under $4.00.  Each of these publications will have much more detail than my normal blog posts, so will hopefully offer more information for those budding builders, and DIYers out there, or anyone who wants to build a sustainable lifestyle.

So, as you are all faithful readers of the blog, what subjects do you think I should I tackle first in the how to series, and dare I say, would anyone think about buying a copy if I did publish them?  I am open to suggestions.  You have the floor dear readers!

My First Grape Vine

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On the weekend, Kim and I got stuck into a little landscaping in the pool area behind the house.

This is where we left off.  The deck is looking great, but the area around the rainwater tank that I wrote about here, is looking pretty crappy.

So, we pulled out all the weeds (fed them to the chooks), and then got rid of the excess concrete that the builder so kindly left behind.  Then I dug out a wheelbarrow full of thick, sticky clay to level the ground.  It was difficult work in the mud and my gum boot kept on getting stuck.  By the time I was finished, I was not a happy camper, and needed a rest and a big bottle of water to calm myself down.

Once rested, then we mucked around for a while trying to figure out what arrangement looked the best and after moving stone, pavers and large pots around about 5 times, Kim had finally settled upon a design!

Kim suggested that I make a box to go around the vine.  I got stuck into making a little planter box for the sultana grape vine that I bought with my birthday money, and found some scrap wood left over from the deck construction.  It was a simple 30cm x 30cm square held together with screws that were countersunk into the wood.  It looks quite nice and I didn’t even have to cut it to size. Luckily I found pieces of scrap the correct dimensions.

I then cut into the weed matting that we had laid down under the Tuscan rock we landscaped with about 10 years ago, only to find the most beautiful soil that had been converted from thick clay to a dark brown loam by the earthworms who had been doing the work over the last decade.  I felt really good about the quality of the soil, and dug down about 30cm to loosen it up, placed the small planter box on top, replaced the weed matting (with a square cut out the same size as the planter box), and popped in the Sultana vine next to the post.

Then, I backfilled with some garden soil and watered it in well.  Hopefully the worms will keep doing their work and the vine roots will establish themselves before the vine goes dormant.  Either way, come spring it should have a flush of new growth that I will train up the post.  I am going to fix a length of strong wire from top to bottom of the post to aid in training the vine up it.

You can also see in the picture that there are pretend river pebbles that I carted 4 wheelbarrow loads from a great stone pile in the front yard about 20 metres to our newly landscaped area.  Kim raked the river pebbles into place.

The area is not quite finished, so I will hold off on the rest of the pictures until Wednesday, when we are set to finish off the work.  I have to build two more planter boxes, improve the soil around the other two posts and then finish it off with river pebbles.  That is on top of the Yucca and flax than Kim has asked me to re-pot into larger ones.  Looks like I have my work cut out for me on my downshift day.  I am also building a longer planter box to place in front of the rainwater tank and will attach a trellis to grow some Kiwi fruit on it.

I have three more vines to plant, two Merlot, and a Crimson seedless table grape.  As I only have two more post remaining, I am going to plant the two Merlot in the same hole and wind them around each other as they grow and then fan them out in opposite directions when they reach the top of the arbour.  That will be in a few years time of course, but I am a patient man, and slowly but surely I am converting the pool area into a food garden as well.

To finish off the day, we sat in the front yard, each with a glass of wine and watched the world go by for about an hour very proud of our accomplishment.

Anyway, I am off to a good start even though when I woke up this morning I could feel every single muscle in my body.  Oh, it feels good to be alive, and I know this to be true because my body told me I was!