The Greening of Gavin

Backyard Clay Oven Update

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One of the proudest achievements on my sustainable living journey has been my Backyard Clay Oven!  I love looking at it.  I love tending the fire.  I love cooking in it.  I love eating the food I make using it.

The REAL Joy

It’s just a joy to know that over 70% of the materials used to make it were reclaimed bricks or clay dug out of my very own backyard.  Can’t get much more sustainable than that except maybe grow the straw!

It was a real labour of love and so many people were willing to pitch in and helped with the initial first and subsequent layers.  Without their help, it would have taken another two months of work.  It was a real community builder and friendship maker.

Another thing that I am chuffed about is that I’ve received so many photos from people all over the world who have used the detailed instructions in my eBook and built their own.  It’s quite amazing and heart warming.

New Backyard Clay Oven Video

Anyway, I thought that it was high time to improve on my original clay oven video.  I wanted to add some narration and provide additional insight into how I made it.  So I made an update version, with a “Where is it now?” section to complete the original “How To” video.

So dear reader, here it is.  The new Build Your Own Backyard Clay Oven update video.

It was fun to make and now features on my new YouTube Channel for The Greening of Gavin.  If you want to be the first to see any new videos please subscribe to the channel, as I don’t always get around to embedding them into a blog post until much later in the week.

Enjoy the narration and feel free to share it far and wide.  I won’t mind at all! 😉

Fixing the Vegie Patch

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What happens when you neglect your vegie patch?  Well, it gets taken over by weeds of course.  Thankfully I managed to schedule a good couple of hours in the garden today; weeding, harvesting, and fixing the vegie patch.

There were so many weeds for the chooks to devour and even a few radishes that I found lurking in the beds.

I decided to document it with a regular video update on my new YouTube channel, so here is 9 minutes of my sunny afternoon in the vegie patch!

On Wednesday, I will be planting my garlic, broad beans, and snow peas.  I will record that gardening session so you can see what’s going on.

I plan on doing one each weekend so that you can see the patch develop over time.  It should be a fun project and keep me and anyone watching motivated to spend some time growing food in the garden.

Let me know if you liked this format.  It was easy to put together and as they say, a picture, or in this case a video, is worth a thousand words.

Liebster Award

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Fiona over at Life at Arbordale Farm recently awarded this blog a Liebster Award.  It’s an award that only exists in the blogosphere, and is given to bloggers from bloggers as a sign of appreciation.  It also helps bloggers connect and pay it forward.

liebster-award-button-image

The rules are pretty simple;

  • Post a short Q&A about themselves
  • Answer the questions the tagger has asked
  • Create a new list of 10 questions for their own nominees
  • Choose a list of their own 5 nominees and notify them

So as it is my birthday today, I thought what the heck, let’s have a bit of fun.

here are the answers to Fiona’s questions;

1. If you had to choose 3 charities to give $100,000 to which charities would they be and why?
  1. MS Society to help research for a cure for this disease that inflicts my beautiful wife Kim.
  2. Australian Conservation Foundation to help promote preservation for our amazing flora and fauna.
  3. The Climate Reality Project to promote awareness for action on Climate Change.
 2. What is the worst job (at home or work) you have had to do?
Prone to vertigo at height, the worst job I had to perform was to sand and paint the top of the mast of an Oliver-Hazard Perry FFG whilst serving in the Royal Australian Navy.  It was frightening, but had to be done.  I had to have a long lay down afterwards!
 
3. What strange food combination do you love?
A fried egg on Vegemite toast.  Delicious, but it does play havoc with my heartburn!
 
4. What is the one skill you don’t have but would love to master?
To play the guitar.  I have tried, but being left-handed and not of the right mindset, my brain just cannot figure it out.
 
5. If you could create a new law what would it be?
Bring back a price on carbon emissions here in Australia to lower our rising carbon emissions.  It worked once, it will work again.  Direct Action is a farce and is just a taxpayer handout to big polluters.
 
6. If you could change the perspective for every person on the planet about one issue what would it be?
 The benefits of living a more sustainable lifestyle.  If everyone lived this way, climate change and environmental destruction would be a thing of the past.
 
7.  If the shops closed tomorrow how long could you feed your family for?
 About 3 months if we carefully plan all our meals.  We have quite the pantry.  I would also plant as many vegetables as I could at the same time, so that we would at least have some veg every day.  I’d even plant out the verge, which is currently being wasted.
 
8. What do you think the 3 biggest environmental issues are?
  • Climate change.  Kind of goes without saying.
  • Hydraulic Fracturing and Coal seam gas mining.  It’s polluting our groundwater and increasing fugitive methane emissions.
  • The Sixth Mass Extinction.  By removing habitat, we are making species extinct every single day.

9. Which famous people would you have over for dinner and why?

  • Al Gore; he is an amazing communicator.  I’ve met him once, but not for very long at the Climate Reality Leadership training and would like to have a chat away from the limelight.
  • The Dalai Lama; I think he would have a pretty cool point of view about what the human race is doing to each other and the planet.
  • Vandana Shiva; one tenacious and clever lady who would be great to talk to about food sovereignty and the threat of GMO to our food supply.

10.  What is your guilty food pleasure?

Cheese, what else?  I can’t stop making it, or eating my own home made cheese.  At least I savour each mouthful!

Certified Curd Nerd

My five nominations are:

Jessie from Rabid Little Hippy.

Lynda from Living in the Land of OZ

Emma from Emma’s Garden Grows

Erin from The Rouge Ginger

Jane from Frugal Queen

My 10 questions for these amazing bloggers are:

  1. Why did you start your blog?
  2. What makes you smile every day?
  3. What is one of your talents?
  4. Who is a hero in your life?
  5. What is your favourite memory from your past?
  6. If the sky’s the limit, what would you like to do next with your life?
  7. What is your favorite season of the year and why?
  8. What’s your favourite inspirational quote?
  9. If you have some spare time, what do you do?
  10. Do you prefer a home-cooked meal, or to go out to a restaurant?

Over to you now!