1 down 3 to go!

I have been sewing today; I made one of the dining chair seat cushions today. I'm very pleased with how it looks, just need to make the other 3 now!

Ok so its not completely finished as I haven't bought the zips to put them in yet.

The elderflower cordial is bottled and tastes wonderful, well Dylan and I like it a lot Stephanie does not like it at all. She wants to go and get strawberries and make a strawberry cordial. We are planning a pick your own trip in the next week to get lots of yummy berries.

Have just ordered some yummy looking food from our local farm delivery website food for kent I have been prdering my vegetables from here for a while now, and we had some lovely sausages from there the other week so have ordered some more as well as some other meats. I love that I know where my food is coming from and that I can ask questions about what is involved in the making of produce such as the butter. Short of buying my own farm it doesn't come much better than this!

time to start thinking about christmas

I have been reading my new favourite book again and have a head buzzing with ideas.

So far I want to;
1. plant lots of herbs
2. get a small holding complete with chickens/geese/cows
3. grow apple trees
4. plant some pretty flowers
5. Grow a christmas tree in a pot

Number 5 for me is the most exciting right now, I love christmas it is my favourite time of the year. I have always wanted to have real christmas tree, but have refused on the basis of it being a waste to cut a tree down for a few weeks of use before it is discarded. Growing one in a pot is an exciting compromise. I need to look into this more, but it seems perfectly feasable so far.

I also plan on starting to think about christmas presents for this year. I would like to give gifts people will appreciate this year. I don't buy for adults, with the exception of grandparents as the cost is just too huge. So for the children I want to find some gift which will be appreciated, am thinking of bowling/cinema tickets for my older neices and nephews this year. For the younger 2 I am not entirely sure yet perhaps something home made I need to think a lot more about this, luckily I have time yet.

My new challenge

I have decided on a new goal I want ot reduce the amount of waste we produce as a family. Since moving to the house and having the compost bin I have found that we have almost halved our waste. I would like to reduce this further. Currently when I put my rubbish out for weekly collection we have 1 full black bag going to landfill, my aim is to reduce this further. I have discovered one main way I can do this as most of our waste is the plastic packaging that food comes from the supermarket in, you know those clear plastic pots that your pork chops are laid out in.
The main way I can do this is by not buying these products in the supermarket. I am planning on either going to the butcher or ordering meat direct from the farm with my veg box (which I am ticked off I forgot to order this week, hence the trip to the supermarket).

Have been doing a lot of thinking today, some products I buy in the supermarket because thats what I have always done. I don't think I can realistically stretch my budget to buying erveything from the farmers, so some things will still have to be purchased in the supermarket. I try to drive as little as possible especially now I need to drive the children to shool/ nursery everyday as the distance would be impossible for us to walk and still be on time, or not need to wake up at stupid o'clock! So I try to combine trips like going to the supermarket when I dro the children up, therefore reducing the amount of miles I would drive if I made seperate trips out.
I have a supermarket I prefer to use, but it is not near to the school so today I went to the one nearest the school. I found though that a lot of the produce that I know I can get british of, were not available from the UK in this supermarket. So I have ended up buying products with huge food miles.
Clearly this doesn't make sense, I drove 5(?) miles less to buy food that has flown hundreds of miles more. So lesson learnt when I do have to frequent the supermarket I will go to my preferred one and have food without the massive airmiles.

I guess then that there are 2 new efforts for me to make from that long rambling post
1. to buy less at the supermarkets thereby reducing waste
2. To reduce the airmiles my food has flown to get to the supermarket when I do have to go there.

First foraging of the year.........

these are some unidentified plants.

One I did identify was the elderfowers; so we made some elderflower cordial, after LOTS of googling I found that I can use ascorbic acid, rather than citric acid. Then I left out the lemons and am hoping for the best, by leaving all the citrus ingredients out then Stephanie can have a try, just hoping that the taste is not desperately impaired by the lack of citrus fruits.

not much talking but lots of reading!

I have been absent from blog land for a few days, due to busy real life! I have done lots of reading about more eco changes we can make as a family. I have been reading about using herbal infusions to help medically with coughs/colds etc; as a result I am planning to grow some herbs. I have tried in the past but they were not successful- this could have been due to trying to grow them in my flats kitchen, the kitchen there never had a window. My kitchen in the house has a nice size windowsill, which will be good to grow some herbs on according to my new book.
Talking of plants my garden is looking good, my strawberries have small green strawberries on am feeling rather excited about the fruits to come.

Another interesting idea I have been reading about is that of not using the soaps and cleaners which I usually use that contain all sorts of harmful chemicals. I have been replacing my existing products with eco versions as necessary; which are much better for the environment. I have also discovered soapnuts.
also found more websites which say that you can use them for more than cleaning your clothes, you can use them to make a liquid to clean the home, as well as your body and hair. Sounds pretty amazing things, can't wait to get my free sample and try them out.




I have made another pretty little dress with the plan to selling it, I still haven't decided the best place to sell it yet. So will store it and hopefully make some more produce by the time I have decided.

I'm loving-

I received my new book today- I love it! It is simple to read, clearly laid out andhas some fantastic ideas in it. It contains information on different plants you can grow, no matte rthe space you have, It has some lovely looking recipes in- I am especially excited by the basic cordial recipe as it does not need to have citric acid in, which is in supermarket squashes and cordials and Stephanie happens to allergic to. I plan on trying out the recipe very soon to make a squash which she can have. There are also sections telling you enviromentally friendly cleaning products you require. I am only a quarter of a way through the book and very excited by it.

After spending a lovely afternoon catching up with a friend and letting our children play in her garden, I came home to sit in our garden and read my book. Things the book have me wanting to try since I picked it up

1. making cordial
2. another attempt at baking bread
3. growing herbs
4. growing fruit trees in pots
5. cleaning with less chemicals

Pardon? you want to know where to buy this amazing book and what its title is? Wall seeing as you asked it is called "A slice of organic life"

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A small update on the quilt, I have decided to sew my hexagons into flower shapes, which joins 7 hexagons at a time, then eventually I will join the flowers to make the quilt, or thats what I am hoping will happen. So far I have 7 of these little flowers made. So a way to go yet, but its definately progressing.

DIY

Look I put this up this afternoon- am very impressed, I decided to give the DIY another try after the success of the spice shelves I put up in the kitchen. I am very pleased that its up, straight and full! It was rather heavy to hold and mark where the holes needed to be drilled at the same time.

I have also done a littel more sewing on the dress I started the other day, and have sewn more hexagons together for my charm quilt. I know have 6 flower shapes sewn together, I am aiming to have about 9 flowers in a row for my quilt so it is nice to see progress coming together.

Tomorrow Dylan is off out for the day with his friend, Stephanie and I are planning on going to play at a local indoor play centre, I would also like to get the zip I need for the dress and have that finished and a little more work on the charm quilt.

For now I am off to complete another unfinished project- reading my current library book!

Good night all