Today's the day

Inspired by http://littlejennywren.blogspot.com/here is a day in my life. Jenny's friends do this on the 14th of every month, but I can only do this on a Sunday so here goes:

6.30 am -woke up without the alarm, which is a real luxury around here. My darling man brought breakfast -a real feast of home made muesli and home made yoghurt, with strawberries and tinned peaches. Earl Grey tea in my favourite Royal Albert china mug.

7.30 am -fresh coffee in the lounge room. I am wearing my dressing gown and ugh boots (nice and warm). Darling Son and Darling Man are off to church -I am going to stay home this morning and get some jobs done that must be done today. We chat about the subscriptions we may take up next year to live music concerts -the Australian Chamber Orchestra was delightful, in its setting in the Governor's ball room, the WA Uni music society gives great variety... can we afford the WA Symphony Orchestra too?

8.30 -try on the frock I am going to adapt for the 1920s theme party next week in honor of my neice's 21st. Try out all the jewellery too. Fun!

8.45 -notice the washing powder box is low. Make up new batch - 4 cups Lux flakes, 2 cups Borax, 2 cups washing soda. Remember my sister in law wanted the recipe, so sit down at the computer and write to her. We have been using this recipe, which is Rhonda's, for over a year. It works well. As we wash in cold water, we dissolve 2 tablespoons per wash in about 2 cups warm water. This lasts for ages, and is so much cheaper than factory made washing powders. It has almost no smell -last year on holiday I washed in factory washing powder, and for a whole week i was struck by the strong smell of the clothes. I remember my amazement when I first discovered that it was possible to wash clothes with stuff I made up at home, from the kind of ingredients our grandmothers would have used.

9.00 - have started this blog, and am in danger of being totally sidetracked. Fortunately my lovely chiming clock has reminded me of the passing of time. I must go and get started on that dress.

9.45 -time for a cuppa again. Quick clean up of the ktichen as I go -breakfast dishes have been soaking in the sink so it only takes a minute. Time to set up the sewing machine - I have cut the dress down to knee length and am adding handkerchief points to the overlay.

10.15 and I have the lights on. The rain is falling - a real blessing as we had a very dry August. I had turned off the automatic watering again a week ago, as we had started to have a few showers, but was getting worried that the ground was getting dry and hard so soon. Some good rain will make the farmer's crops come on again for the last growing spurt before harvest. That means wheat and canola for the world, as Western Australia has a large export market for both of these.

12.0o noon. the dress is ready and the headband is done ( a bit wobbly) and I am now getting my daughter to add a band to her hat. Modelled my outfit and got some good feedback from the family so that was worth it. Son and husband back from church and visiting my elderly in-laws. Lunch is being made with the sandwich toaster.

OOPS - the big wind has shredded one of our shade sails. Well, it had done several seasons, so we will just get another.

12.14 -someone recently expressed amazement about the idea of a plastic-free kitchen and declared that it was not possible to do without plastic wrap. Found this link http://crazy-mumma.blogspot.com/2007/04/alternatives-to-plastic-wrap.html whilst waiting for Darling Man to make me an avocado and turkey toasted sandwich.

1.00 -checking out the simple savings forum. Decided that I should go and do some cooking -make some things for lunches this week as there is not much around. We rely on 'leftovers' but the only thing in the freezer is two boxes of pumpkin soup.

Think I will do some peasant veggie soup using the turnips from the garden and the bok choy and such, and I will make a quiche for tea. Whilst using the oven I will use up some things in the pantry to make muffins etc

2.13 sitting down for a while to rest while my cake cooks. The soup had onion. potato and celery which were not grown at home. My celery is not big enough yet. I grew the turnips, the bok choy and silverbeet and the parsley -big handfuls each.

3.15 dear daughter is making me a big pot of coffee. Chocolate cake to go with it. Quiche is in the oven. That's it -my back hurts and someone else is going to have to clean the kitchen!

So - I think I will enjoy a small piece of cake and some coffee and then read for a while.

5.25 -off to our Home Church group.

7.30 -arrive back in time for Doctor Who. We eat in the family room -this is why dinner has to be done early!

8.30-that is it. Time to finish my book, off to bed and the whole week starts again. Posted by earthmotherwithin at 5:49 PM 0 comments

The shed is up and set up too

Well, the guys came and put up the shed, so we spent a few mornings before work moving the stuff into it. Darling Man is very happy, and is even talking about "Organising" it.

The carport is now clear of junk as we have also had a skip delivered so that building rubble and other stuff can go out. Whilst my aim is to have nothing leave the site, this is not really always possible and I have come to terms with the fact that sometimes things will go to the tip. My comfort is that this is much less than we used to send there.

So here is a picture of the new addition, which has coincidentally made more light into the kitchen, which is a nice bonus.

We have decided that there is no point any more with what is left of the lawn so we will be turning the area, apart from a path to the clothes line, into more veggie patch (Happy Happy Happy...doing the happy dance!)

Home improvements -something finished!

We have at last had the front brickpaving completed. Yippee! This has been a long time in the planning, but it is so good to have it done.
The aim is to reduce our water use -the lawn which was here was not attractive and was a lot of work too.
My son can park his car here too.
Our water bill this time has shown nearly 30% less water than at this time a year ago, as a result of a number of projects we are doing now.
My Darling Man worked very hard to prepare this area so for Father's day we bought him a shed, which will be delivered this coming week.
However, he had more work to do to get a place ready for the shed, so he had to lay 58 slabs!
As the shed we bought was bigger than we had planned, he also had to remove our old rotary clothes line and put up a parallel line one (LOL!)
It is great to have all these projects completed. Thanks to my Darling Man, of course.

(I supply the ideas)

New raised garden

This is my new raised garden bed. I have put it in front of the dining room window, so I can always see how it is doing. It sits at the end of our driveway in a space which was not used at all.
We have used some soil removed from an area out the front which we are going to pave, and added lots of compost, lupin mulch etc.
It is quite densely planted with asparagus, strawberries, lettuce, mizuna, celery and bok choy.
This is also the first time we have used drip line irrigation, and we like it so much we will eventually move the whole garden over to it.
The next thing is to get shade for it in the summer time.
My experience last summer suggests that for months at a time, the only way our vegetables will survive is under at least 60% shade.

New garden bed arrives!

I was very excited this week when this new raised garden bed arrived!
This is on the west side of our house and will be close to the first water tank we own. We are now investigating the best tank for us.
There will be a shade sail over the area in the summer.
We plan to grow asparagus and strawberries, celery and lettuce in the raised bed.
At the back you can see the snow peas which are now growing along the fence.
My Darling man spend a few hours yesterday wheelbarrowing some soil into a heap, which is now in the bottom of the raised bed.
the soil is coming from a heap which has been made by scooping out some soil from the front of our house, where we are going to pave.

Politeness in live concerts -where has it gone?

I have just been to see a wonderful young orchestra play some amazing orchestral pieces in the Perth Concert Hall, conducted by a virtuoso, world class conductor.
The music was fabulous, and the young people played with distinction. I happen to know they have practiced all week last week, more than 5 hours a day, perfecting their performance.

In the final piece, after the interval, a woman two rows from the front started eating from a foil wrapped bag of potato crisps! The cellists were distracted, and even the conductor turned around twice to see what was making the racket. Then she burped ( I kid you not!) and then when the crisps were finished, she rummaged in her bag (still rustling the foil) until she found her hand cream and then proceeded to noisily slap the cream on her hands!

I really think most people do not know how to distinguish between sitting in your loungeroom watching a DVD, and making comments as you like, and a live performance in which the players are with you, sometimes only metres away.

So, here is my "audience guide" to how to conduct yourself at live performances:
1. Get there on time. If you are late and your seat is at the front, ask the staff to put you at the back (if they let you in at all) until a suitable break.
2. Don't eat in the middle of a performance, especially in a 'quite bit"
3. Don't text people on your mobile phone in the middle of the performance. Even if your keys ar soundless, the light disturbs others. Some sound systems will be disturbed by your activity.
4. If you bring your baby and he or she begins to cry, please take them out.
5. If you are in a classical music performance, look at the programme and work out how many movements you are listening to. It is expected that each movement will proceed without applause between them. Let there be a quiet moment, so that the music can flow from one mood to the next without interruption.

Drying in the winter -our latest technology

We wanted to reduce our reliance on electricity for clothes drying in the winter.

My darling man made me a clothes line which hangs under the eaves on the side of the house away from the weather.
As you can see about 2/3rds of it is under the eaves. Darling Man will add a short roof from the eave to the fence so that it can be completely dry.
He even put down 24 bags of blue metal, so that the ground drains any water away and keeps the feet dry while we hang out the washing.
Already we have reduced the need for the use of an electric dryer for hours every week, to less than 1 hour per fortnight ( sometimes we just need a quick 'whoosh' to completely dry something which has hung outside in damp weather.