Learning is an essential part of living. As Henry Ford once said “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.”
During my morning meditation, it came to me that I learn every day. Here are four random lessons I learnt today.
1. Never chase an escaped dog down the road when you have a sore and swollen knee.
Holly escaped today, and stupidly, I chased after her, knowing full well that I had twisted my knee earlier on in the day. Yes dear reader, I did catch her, but only after a good 500 metre dash, and now have a throbbing knee that put the kibosh on any further gardening activities this afternoon.
2. Pepino melons keep for a very long time in the fridge.
We picked two pepino melons off our bush a couple of months ago and stored them in the crisper section of the fridge. Today, for dessert, along with loganberries and strawberries, I am enjoying home grown sliced pepino melon. It tastes as nice as a freshly picked melon. Something to note for next year.
3. Vegetables grow twice as quick when watered by rain.
Very objective and unscientific but I would like to share this observation. I had been watering all my vegetables with mains/tank water for the last month and a half due to the lack of rain. They were growing well enough but not very quickly. Over the last few days, we have had about 25mm (1 inch) of rain, and I swear that all the veggies have nearly doubled in size. It must be the dissolved nitrogen that the water absorbs as it falls from the sky that helps them to take off.
4. Scaly Leg Mites must be rife.
This afternoon I was checking my blog statistics and one of the most searched posts over the last few months has been about removing scaly leg mites. It must be a big of a problem out there in backyard chicken land, so my post about How To Remove Scaly Leg Mites has been very helpful indeed.
Well that is the four things I learnt today. What is the one sustainable living thing that you learnt over the weekend? Was it new or re-learnt?
Not to make soap in a rush! It reached trace before I was ready. I hadn’t greased the moulds, couldn’t find the oat bran, it went pear shaped!
That was a lesson I learnt the hard way, when I first made soap as well.
Oh you do get me pondering, Gavin. Sorry to hear about the knee. And Holly. Doh!
I noticed that with the rain too. In fact, I just said something about it over at Rabid Hippy’s page. Our French beans and cucumbers are growing a new set of leaves every day! And the tomatoes are zipping along.
What sustainable living thing have I learnt today? Hmm. Two things:
1. The smell of compost is devine.
2. One ought to do all they can in order to live their conception of the good life–the more sustainable the better–as life is too short to put it off.
Slightly off topic. If you haven’t already, check out Sue and Giles’ attempt at living the good life, Tom and Barbara style. Very entertaining and quite educational:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xrtey7_e1-giles-and-sue-live-the-good-life-getting-started_lifestyle
Cheers Paul. The knee is getting better.
You are so right about compost. It does smell divine!
As for Giles and Sue, what a bloody good series, Kim and I are up to episode 3 and I have pissed myself laughing throughout each show! Glad that you left the link. Just the best
Gav
Yes, rain seems to give the plants an extra boost, and scaly leg mites are rife!
Something I learnt today? I love having (my new) bees. It was a long time happening but they arrived this week.
You take care of that knee!
Bees! Lucky you to have some of the most valuable workers ever produced by Mother nature. I can smell the honey now.
Gav x
Haha, yes, I’ve seen an episode or two of Sue and Giles Live the Good Life – it’s very funny. I’m a die hard Tom and Barbara fan, too. Sustainable living lessons learned recently include:
– draft proofing the basement and replacing the old single pane windows with double glazing have made the basement too warm to work as root vegetable storage, as we have done for the past decade or more.
– The new double glazed windows installed in the main part of the house also mean that at night, we have no idea what the weather is doing – until this year, we could tell by how much the curtains were moving just how windy it was, and in the kitchen, we knew if it was raining by the rattling noise on the single panes. Not any more. Now we have resorted to checking the “weather” cat – if she comes in all wet, we know it’s raining :).
Weather cat! You crack me up Dawn.
I am a big Good Life fan as well and just working on a post about the show and comparison to Kim and I.
Should be a good one.
Gav x
Hi Gavin,
Take it easy on that knee!
I am working on throwing away less food. It is tricky to grow and expensive to buy, so lets not waste it.
I just learned how to knit socks. Took a class with my 26yr old son and now we both have a cozy pair of socks to wear and more on the needles. It is a great winter hobby too, as nothing beats curling up in front of the wood stove so you can knit a few rows.
Take care
Barb
Barb, sock making is a fantastic skill worth having. I wonder if someone local could teach me? At least I now know who to call on when TSHTF!
Gav x
Mine are: Never trust a goat in the vege patch
Never lift the stick blender up when you are mixing soap
As for the rain and the amazing vege growth , there is a real scientific reason for this, somewhere I read that there is oxygen in the rain water , which directly benefits the plant.I always plant my seedlings in the rain when I can!
Hi Kim. Yes, I came across the stick blender trick during our last during our last soap making workshop. A student tried it, and I placed my hand on top of the stick just in time to prevent a caustic disaster.
Gav x
Hmmm, I learned several things this last few days.
1. Never underestimate the power of a child to fall asleep – Jas bombed out mid drink and mid banana.
2. Like you, I discovered fresh rain water is far more effective than harvested rain water or tap water for plants. My gardens too have gone berserk. Sadly so has the grass. 🙁
3. 4 hours direct sunlight a day is insufficient light for tomatoes to grow. I gave up waiting for my seedlings to grow any more (they’ve grown maybe a millimetre since sprouting a few weeks ago) and planted them out. Now I get to learn if they can survive and thrive in the garden when incredibly tiny.
4. If you never ask you will never find out. I have found a source for coffee grounds and for beef and chicken bones, the 2 things both on my list to source.
And
5. My 3 year old daughter can’t pat her head and rub her tummy, although she is trying to. Well cute.
I’m looking forward to seeing what else I learn in the next week.
Nice list Jessie. I am excited about your move just down the road from me! How many more sleeps?
Gav x
I’m amazed at the effect the rain has too- I remember hearing Don Burke talk about this on Burke’s Backyard when I was a kid. My capsicums doubled in size overnight, I swear! I stared at the rain last Tuesday, then I stared at the garden afterwards, such a relief after this dry spell. The tanks are on their way to being full after getting very low- our 4,500L tanks was empty due to children playing with the taps. Grrr!
Hi Alicia. I remember doing the same thing to my father when I was a kid except that it was about 20,000L. Thankfully it was not full, and I only wasted about 2000 litres, but still, in a dry climate it was a disaster.
Gav x