Adventures in Second Hand purchasing

 If we are to live more sustainably on this One Planet Earth we all share, it is pretty clear that we in the industrialised and wealthy countries need to reduce our consumption. One of the ways I try to do this is by choosing to purchase things second hand rather than new, wherever possible.

When we buy second hand, we keep things from landfill, we dampen the demand for manufacturers to make new things all the time, and as a by-product we save money. I try to always look for anything I need first in the free or second hand space, before buying new. 

A picture of our veggie garden and fruit trees

As I try to limit my exposure to all kinds of advertising, I generally have identified an actual need or a sensible 'want' before I go out to look for a product. This month I have been aware of the fact that I have a LOT of last year's citrus harvest in the freezer, and it wasn't moving fast enough into our meals. I need to move it through the freezer to keep the rotation going and have room for other things. Then it occurred to me that I could make sorbet or gelato or icecream and use up the juice that way. That meant finding an icecream maker!*

The ice cream maker I bought second hand

As it happens, ice cream makers are just the kind of appliance to be often available in the second hand market. People buy them with all sorts of aspirations, and then don't make a habit of using them much. At some point it is just an appliance taking up valuable real estate in their kitchen and in their freezer. 

I found a good brand ice cream maker for about one third of the price of a new one. If it should happen that I don't use the machine as much as I think I would, then I have not been much out of pocket. 

Lemon cake with lemon icing on 

a second hand cake stand, plate and glass cover

In order to make room for the icecream maker in the cupboards in the kitchen, we advertised our dehydrator on our local Buy Nothing group. We have realised that in this climate we don't really need a dehydrator. Firstly, most herbs grow all year round, and fresh herbs are usually more flavourful. Secondly, we have a LOT of dry sunny days, and anything we needed to dry could simply be hung somewhere shady and a day or so later it would be crisp. We are happy to let someone else have the dehydrator- we got it for free, so we passed it on for free too. 

So I looked on line in a popular marketplace and found a suitable machine. Sadly, after I got it home I discovered it had a piece missing. The seller didn't have the piece, and offered to reduce the price if I could find a replacement piece from the manufacturer. The manufacturer was not helpful -they said they had a backlog and would take 8-10 working days to get back to me! Hmmm.

I got my money back from the first seller, and checked if I could find a similar machine new in a shop Just as I  was reconciled to this, another machine of exactly the same type as the first one, turned up for sale -and for $10 less! Off I went again and this time all the pieces are there. 

The first Icecream I made is from Stephanie Alexander's book 
The Kitchen Companion" : lime icecream. It was extremely nice, and worth taking to dinner on Friday when our Friday friends group gets back together after a month recess over the Christmas and New Year period. 

I have been reading over the summer period. One of the books I enjoyed from the library was Kate Rawles's story of riding a bike around South America and visiting both biodiversity hot spots and places in trouble, and the people trying to heal the land and change the system.

Everything is connected, they say. One mine, one extinction, is felt everywhere and by everything. Just doing things like taking the trouble to buy second hand or fix something rather than throwing it away, is a tiny act of restoration and rebellion against the forces that will destroy everything we hold dear. 

* Of course, citrus is not just used in icecream. I have been using lemons instead of stuffing in a roast chicken, for a long time. I also use lemon and lime juice in salad dressings, risotto and just flavouring iced water for long summer drinks. The DH makes marmalade from many citrus varieties too. Cakes can be great with citrus.

If you have as many trees as I have, there is a big need to find uses for citrus- even after giving many of the fruit away there is still a lot left. 

BUY these things at an op shop! They are useful, hard working and durable*

 I was browsing in one of those kitchen tool type shops recently. They have lovely things, and I had 20 minutes whilst waiting for my husband. What shocked me, though, was the price of things I have at home which I got at op shops and have loved and used for years.

In each case, buying them from the op shop extends their useful life, saving them from landfill. (However, only buy them if you can actually use them. The Op Shop Goddess likes people who are considerate of others!) 

1. Wooden salad bowls, plates and boards

We buy wooden salad bowls and use them a lot around here. Mind you, some of them looked pretty drab in the shop as no-one had cared for the wood for years. That large teak salad bowl was desert dry and had tuned almost blond in colour. We brought it home and gave it a wash, then layers of lovely food safe Orange Oil (an Australian product and I don't have any links to the company- substitute whatever food safe product you can find) were applied and this is how it came up. I wash it in soapy water, dry it and use it over and over, but about once a year, I slick the orange oil over it and take care of it.

Sometimes we have found a nice handmade bowl -but someone has put plastic estapol on it. DH sands it back and then gives it the orange oil treatment. 

Salad bowls are of course, just a bowl which can hold all sorts of useful things. Many foods are most flavourful when at room temperature: tomatoes ripen slowly on the bench on a cute raised bowl . If I had chickens I could put eggs in them. 

Scones look lovely on a table when served in a wooden bowl with a linen napkin lining. Bread is  a natural on a wooden platter or shallow bowl or a wooden chopping board. 

There is nothing to stop us using wooden bowls for mixing bread or cake batter and other things in -I must confess I never have, but once upon a time wooden mixing bowls were standard in kitchens. 

Wooden chopping boards and cheese boards can take a bit more of a sanding back, because they are flat and thicker -DH gives ours a turn in the workshop if they need it. to freshen up the surface before treating with the food safe oil again. 

Oh, just so you know -wooden salad bowls were $70 or more in the kitchen equipment shop! 

2. Serviettes or Napkins

I have a lovely range of wash and wear table napkins which we use a lot. No need to have single use or disposable  ones. These are generously sized, easy to use and easy to wash-honestly, I don't worry if they are used for greasy fingers or to wipe tomato spills-after all, they cost only cents. I can't remember any of them staining that badly though. I have a couple of sets of colours to go with my table settings. You can shove them in the picnic basket and not worry. 

These are cotton and synthetic blends mostly, which is why they are pretty indestructable.  I would rather use all natural fabrics, except in this situation where the fabric already exists, and is practically bombproof. 

3. Table cloths

I have a couple of table cloths which fit my table and were bought at op shops for tiny amounts of money. They make it look like I made an effort, and are so easy -just wash and fold. Recently I borrowed a book from the library about how to emulate French Country style -and guess what? Table cloths were recommended! If you have ones that don't need ironing, or find them at the op shop for a few dollars, why not put them out and enjoy them?  

4. Tea towels

Many opshops have souvenir type teatowels which are made of linen, and will cost very little! I buy them and wash the shiny sizing off, and use them in the kitchen. Have enough to change them every day! 

5. Glass storage jars

I store my food in glass in the pantry and in the fridge whereever possible.  Glass jars are expensive to buy new, but cheap in op shops. They can be refreshed in the dishwasher and come up nicely. If you need lids they can often be found online. Here is an Australian supplier. 

Yes, I do freeze food in glass jars! So long as you leave a 'headspace' for the food to expand as it freezes you will be fine.

If you are lucky enough to have one of those bulk dry goods stores near you, you can fill up your glass jars with all sorts of spices and flours and bypass the plastic bags in the supermarket entirely. 

6. Baskets

Baskets are the MVPs of my house. 

 I have dedicated baskets for my library books, so I can keep them safe by my favourite chair, and then pick them up and go the library when it is time for a renewal.

Decent baskets with useful handles and a fair capacity can be picnic baskets, shopping baskets, harvest baskets, fruit baskets, there are so many uses.

Those little flat bamboo baskets are great for drying herbs 

The lovely thing about baskets is the way they feel -sort of old fashioned and they swing as you walk.

One of mine needed a bit of a repair when I got it -the edge was a bit broken and likely to catch on things. I wrapped some string around it and now it is fine. I believe in making things last -no need to hide a repair, enjoy it. 

And, of course, there is always a creative use for baskets.

7. Kitchen tools 

I have a number of kitchen tools that I picked up at Op Shops. I like things like tongs, strainers and double boilers that will fit a number of saucepan sizes. The good thing is that if they don't work, you can easily return them and let someone else have them. 

*Footnote

You can also barter these things for a jar of your home made pickles, or get them for free from a local share/swap site, or find them in garage sales. Whatever, if you use them they are not in landfill. 

New Year, old me, same slow living

 Welcome to my first blog post of the New Year and thanks for visiting.

One of the things which happens at the end of the year is that we have lots of birthdays to celebrate, including mine. I always start the year officially older. Our celebrations of Christmas and New Year always spread over several days, to try to give the birthday girls a moment in the sunshine too. We had lunch with friends and lunch with the adults of the family, and a picnic afternoon tea in the park with the grandchildren, just for birthday celebrations. 

Did you give and receive presents recently? One of the things now residing in my house is a new attachment for my Kenwood Chef- it is a food grinder. 

The reason this grinder was on the Christmas Wish list is that I was interested to go further with my experiments in building skills for slow food, slow living. The questions was, would it be cheaper to make my own mince and sausages?  The 2.3 kg pork shoulder I bought was $20. Pork sausages are about $8-9 per 450g this week so making my own would save about half the money of buying 2.2 kg of sausages. (I am using for this example good quality sausages, not the cheap 'goodness knows what is in them' kind). 

I tried it for the first time this week, making a boneless shoulder of pork into mince. I then made meatballs with some of it to serve with pasta and tomato sauce, and froze the rest. I have some sausage casings on order -it will be interesting to see if I can manage the process of actually filling the cases and making sausages. I am also looking into what else I can make with this attachment. The process, though slow-ish, was enjoyable and I will certainly go further with it. 

I already have established several old timey sorts of habits and skills - I can make a pretty good sourdough loaf, most of my cakes turn out fine from scratch, I am now a regular pastry maker so pies and flans are often eaten here. My husband makes yoghurt and jams and chutney. There are pickled onions and pickled vegetables in the fridge for summer salads, which we made ourselves.

 

Of course we also try to grow food in our suburban garden, and whilst there are some successes -the blueberries have been fabulous-there are also failures. No strawberry has ever made it to ripeness in my garden without some pest eating it before I did! After several years, the mulberry is now producing decent fruit, and the rhubarb we pick is now both chunky and red. 

Summer is well established now. The rains have gone, my water tanks are half full, and the irrigation is the focus of our garden survival. DH thinks we need a new solanoid thingo  and a new controller for it. Shade has been spread around to help everything cope.

DH is a partner in the old fashioned skills, with his fabulous set of tools in the shed. Today he is working on my sewing room door, repainting it after sanding and making it nice again. I have a new sign to go on it when it is done. 

The grandchildren have a swing set in their garden, and one of the components that they loved was a stand-on swing. On Christmas Day it broke, so we brought it home and DH made a new piece for it out of wood, and sealed it. It was a bit tricky due to the ropes involved, which he did not want to undo, but he worked out a design which enabled the new wood to be inserted without undoing the ropes at all. 

The thing about this kind of slow living that many people comment upon is that it seems like a lot of work, and that they don't have time. Yes it is work but my feeling is that the work is the kind that gives deep satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. How else should we fill our days, except with the stuff of being independent and resourceful and practical, about the things which go to a good life without consuming more of the earth's resources than we need or can afford? Now that we are retired, of course we have more time to devote to these things. It would be hard to live like this  in the conduct of a full time job and with young children, unless something were to change -if you could afford a part time job, for example, or if finally the kids were in school all week. 

Finally some resources for you:

Jill WInger the Prairie Homestead - https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/author/jill

Makuru: Winter in South West (Australia)

It has been wet and cold (in relative terms!) for us this week. The garden is refreshed and the water tank a third full again. Hopefully we can get more rain to fill it up again before winter is over. 

We have been experimenting with the use of the new "Hay Box"  (above) that DH made for me.  

Since my last post, DH painted the Hay box and it has found a permanent place in my laundry. 

 It is great for proofing my sourdough overnight. Last winter I used to wrap the bowl in a blanket on the kitchen bench, or heat the oven very slightly and put the bread in there. With the Hay Box I just put the bread dough in an oiled saucepan and tuck it in to the Hay Box. The method of making sourdough to this stage does not, of course, have any heat, so as I have a microwaveable stone pad, I heat it slightly in the microwave for 1 minute on medium, then put that underneath the dough in the saucepan. The last step is to tuck a cushion I made from a leftover curtain, stuffed with more leftover Earthwool insulation on top before I add the lid. The couple of times I have used the Hay Box the bread has risen beautifully by morning. 

The first of our pumpkins was harvested. I weighed it as 6 kilos! If you have bought pumpkin from a supermarket (or bought it in a can, as apparently happens in some places) you have really never experienced the wonder that fresh pumpkin can offer, cut on your kitchen bench with the fragrant perfume of ripe orange flesh which is dripping with juicy goodness. It is of course pumpkin season, so pumpkin is only $3 a kilo at the moment, but still, that one is worth $18 and all I did was let it run rampant under the citrus in the back yard. There are 5 more out there! 

With 6 kilos to manage, I had to get busy in processing it. I roasted some and it went into the pumpkin soup, which I started on the stove and heated to boiling and put it in the Hay Box for about 7 hours. When we got it out for dinner the internal contents were +60C which is fine. I blended the soup and heated it a bit on the stove before serving, adding a squeeze of lemon to take the edge off the sweetness. 

Some of the pumpkin was just steamed in the microwave and frozen for later use. 

My granddaughter (aged 8) came over and we made pumpkin scones, and then the rest of the family came to help us eat them. 

Another use of the Hay Box was that I cooked some jasmine rice in an equal volume of boiling water for 5 minutes and then tucked the pot into the slow cooker for about 90 minutes. When I pulled it out the rice was beautifully cooked by the absorption method with no dried overcooked rice on the bottom. I can see me thinking twice about the electric rice cooker -maybe it could go, and this would become the favourite method around here from now on. 

If you are interested in Hay Box cooking, you might find this link helpful - about Hay Boxes and temperatures here 

This weekend is a Long Weekend in our state, for the "WA Day" holiday. It is also National Reconciliation Week. "We strive towards a more just, equitable nation by championing unity and mutual respect as we come together and connect with one another. On this journey, Australians are all In This Together; every one of us has a role to play when it comes to reconciliation, and in playing our part we collectively build relationships and communities that value Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, histories and cultures".

I have been reading Layla Saad's book "Me and White Supremacy". It is a difficult and thoughtful work. We have much to do here in Western Australia to overcome our terrible history of oppression and marginalization and dispossession of the Indigenous people of this land.  Watching the USA in terrible conflict over race relations is scary and sobering. 

I was much saddened by the terrible news about the destruction of a 43,000 year old site of Aboriginal culture THIS WEEK by RioTinto, who blew it up to extend a mine, and did so 'legally'. Sure, they got around to apologising, but there is no way to compensate the traditional owners, let alone all of us, for the loss of this site of world significance. 

I leave you with this thought. 

Planning for spring 21 July 2019

We tackled a big task this week: completely renovating our largest raised garden bed. We had this idea a month or so ago, that the dwarf nectarine which we were growing in a large pot, might do better in this bed, whilst also providing some shade to other plants in the summer.

We thought we could also put the cumquat (also in a pot) into this bed: citrus shade is not very dense so the other herbs we grow here won't be struggling for light. This bed is on the west so can get quite hot. We have a shade sail (50%) which we put over it during the height of summer.

We want bigger crops from both of these trees , but do not want either of them in the ground where they might get too big. As our weather has been quite mild, we were worried the nectarine would start new leaves soon, so we needed to get on to it!

The bed got a spa treatment: home made compost, rock minerals, fertiliser, mushroom compost and mulch. I had all of the ingredients already here, apart from the mushroom compost which was recommended for the worms, so I guess it cost about $10 to do this bed, plus about $2 for the plastic pot saucers we are using for the tower lids.

DH had been taken with the idea of providing each tree with a 'worm tower" and to this end, went and chatted up a young neighbour who has been doing the most monster renovation on his place. DH had noticed a large diameter plastic pipe in the rubbish pile, which he thought would do nicely for the worm towers. The neighbour was happy to pass it on.

DH drilled holes all down the sides, then we buried them up to their necks near each tree. With some mushroom compost and food scraps in the bottom, we added our own compost worms. These will escape via the holes to do their magic in the beds, but return to the towers for the food we provide. As it is a raised bed which sits on a concrete pad that was here when we bought the house, the worms won't escape further into the garden. There is one worm tower near each tree, providing wonderful food for them.

One of DH's friends has given us more worms, so we can add more towers around the garden. The only trouble will be that I now have 4 compost bins and two worm towers and one worm farm, all needing vegetable matter! I may have to turn to my neighbours for food scraps soon.

The Drylands Permaculture farm is north of here, in the drier and hotter Geraldton area. I have bought Yilgarn seeds from them before. I appreciate the way their seeds are adapted to our growing conditions -if they survive in Geraldton they should be good here.

I have some lovely new varieties to try:
Asparagus Peas
East Indian Clove basil
White Flowering Catnip
Laos Tiger Green Stripe Eggplant
 Palestinian Za'atar;
and Dongara Long white apple cucumber.

As a result of the renovated garden bed, I have now two large pots for my summer tomatoes. Wouldn't it be great if I actually got a glut of tomatoes this year?

We are planning a really good spring/summer season.

Getting serious about the kitchen renovation- it only took a year!

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Home made sausage rolls: why have I not done this before? I am astonished at how easy they are, and tasty. I found a recipe which adds fennel seeds to the pork mince and they are terrific.

Well, that took a while! In October 2017 I wrote a post about our ideas for renovating the kitchen. I wrote then that there were things which had become difficult about this kitchen, and what we wanted to change:

• There are very few drawers. As I am now in my early 60s, I am finding it harder to reach into the back of the bottom shelf and lift out a heavy casserole dish that I have stored there. The idea of having a drawer which can hold my dishes and which I can pull out to reach them is very attractive. This feature will help us to move into our senior years with confidence we can manage things here
• I sometimes run out of bench space. I do a lot of cooking and baking, and DH loves to preserve and make jam. This kitchen is a bit cramped sometimes. Some of my appliances -like the microwave and the stand mixer -have to be stored on the bench too. 
• It doesn't have a lot of natural light. I would like bigger windows to see out of and let light in.
• I can't store my baking trays in the kitchen -they are in the linen closet.
• I can only fit in a bottom mount fridge/freezer, but I would love a side by side fridge freezer so I can keep more in the freezer. Right now we have another fridge outside -mostly because we need the extra freeer space, but it is not always so convenient to go out there. In the summer it is a hot place for a fridge to be kept, so I guess the fridge motor is working hard out there. 
• I sometimes wish I had an extra oven -I have used my barbecue as an oven when things get busy. My current freestanding stove and oven is showing signs of age and the oven in particular has a small capacity because its heating source takes up quite a bit of room. 
• We have solar panels on the roof, so using electricity rather than gas would be a good thing for the planet and cheaper for us, especially now I am retired and can do more cooking during the daytime. I could replace the gas stove with an induction cooktop and electric oven. 
• The layout of the kitchen could be improved

I guess there were a lot of reasons why we didn't act on our initial ideas back in October last year. We knew that the building industry in Australia shuts down over the Christmas -New Year period, and it was unlikely that we would get the project up and running then.


We got stuck into some easier updates -painting the lounge room and dining room, for instance. Then I really got uncomfortable about how messy and inconvenient the kitchen renovation would be. I couldn't face it so I just left the idea altogether.


Anyway, this week, with the weather warming up and the possibility of cooking outside become practical again, we started getting quotations for the work we wanted. The first quote was terribly off-putting, though, as it was hugely over my estimated budget. In my innocence, I had looked at what our last bathroom renovation had cost, and doubled it, but in fact this quote was four times as much!

We also discovered that it was going to be difficult to get my desired side-by-side fridge and freezer in the kitchen without compromising either the amount of light in the kitchen (smaller window) or the amount of bench space near the stove when moved to the interior wall. I was seriously disappointed.

It took a day or so to reflect on that experience and to get back into trying to find a way around the problems we had encountered. I reminded myself that we live simply, that we don't need grandiose finishes and that by keeping our goals in mind we could hopefully find a way to a kitchen which would work for us, but not absorb so much in the budget.

We went to IKEA and have sought a detailed quotation from them -it looks more in our ball park already. I am encouraged by recommendations from the Young House Has a Podcast people that their IKEA experience was fine -and also by recommendations from someone DH knows, who is also happy with theirs.

We have also sought a third quotation from another custom kitchen cabinet maker: hoping that it might be somewhere less than the first one, and not too much different from the IKEA one. The designer they sent out to measure up was most impressed to catch me in the middle of making my sourdough bread, and he also understood entirely why we didn't want expensive stone benchtops, for example, as I couldn't see what the advantage was in them. I have laminex benchtops we put in over 20 years ago and they have held up very well. 

In the meantime I have done a major cull of kitchen equipment, and sent a number of things to the op shop, so there is more room in the cupboards. This is not instead of renovating, I hasten to add, but so that when we need to pack up the kitchen, we are only packing what is essential.

I am hoping that we can do all the major planning of this renovation now, and start it in late January when the building industry comes back from their summer holidays.