sustainable living june

Well dear friends!! I finally have a spare hour to settle myself fully into this space. They've been a whirlwind in many ways these past 3 weeks, to say the least! Thankyou so much for the lovely comments that you left on my very quick 'just passing by' post. It really was delightful to read that some of you are still stopping by to see what I'm up to! 

I won't go into all the details of my absence because this post is supposed to be about all the happenings in June ;) Mind you, it feels like June was a lifetime ago and I mostly cant even remember what went on!!! However I did start this Sustainable Living post back then and really want to share it regardless of the lack of memory! 

nourish: Firstly and most importantly I feel, there is the food! There were a lot of nourishing vegan bowls of goodness in the last month. Ive been passionate about healthy eating for most of my life and am a firm believer in More Greens!!! I've also been striving towards a plant based or vegan diet for the past 12 months - which wasn't hard as we were vegetarian for over 20 years.

It's so easy now to be completely plant based as there is so much info and so many great ready made sauces and substitutes if you are short on time. I mostly make my own and the one above is a super simple cashew sauce as well as a quick guacamole. I make those a lot because a sauce can dress up anything! The bowls here have a whole baked sweet potato topped with a can of lentils (which I fried with an onion and some spices) baby spinach, chopped capsicum and the toppings. We've been having these types of dinners regularly - sometimes the base is quinoa or brown rice - and always there are lots of different veggies in there and some delicious saucy goodness on top!!

Oh, and I also made peanut butter! :)

lessen: One of the little quirks in my life is not liking to throw things out! Now that does mean that I tend to have a large stash of junk useful items tucked away in our Shed of Delights waiting patiently for their day in the limelight. It also means that when I or indeed any of the family require say, a metre and a half of fly screen or a book on batik dying or even a 1970's National Geographic magazine, they are sure to find it within those hallowed shelves! I used to feel a little weird about this habit of mine. I mean it's not exactly what everyone is into now is it? Just take the popularity of Marie Kondo and the minimalist movement.

In recent times however (like the last few months) I've been feeling at peace with my hoarding tendencies. I refuse to feel guilty any longer! I like being able to put my hands on some fabric to create without buying it new; I enjoy having a stack of mags if I feel like creating a vision board; I love to help my family out with whatever it is they may need for a little project. Of course, I don't have everything we need, stashed away in The Shed but often there'll be something there that we can make do with. And because I love to re-use stuff, it makes me feel really good.

All that to say that I used up a beloved and well used linen tea towel....and after a lot of stitching, turned it into 3 dishcloths. I get such a thrill out of this kind of thing - just looking at the pic makes me all excited!! Mind you, I think that was the only such remake that happened all month so I suppose it's a good thing to be excited about hahaha!!!

grow: See, I told you I cant remember much from June - I'm not even sure why I had a pic of my salad saved under the 'grow' category although I'm guessing it's because of the sprouts! Nothing at all growing here outside. The weather is doing it's wintery, sleety, windy thing and I'm tucked up inside growing the only garden I can right now! Sprouts. Delicious tiny powerhouses of nutrition.

create: I do remember creating these pyjamas for the three grandchildren! Mostly because I swore a lot and spent days arranging and rearranging the pattern pieces on the various matching bits of fabric that I'd unpacked from.....wait for it......The Shed!!! The plain pink was an old sweatshirt of mine and the rest were fabrics I'd picked up in op-shops over the years. Since they were for pj's I wanted to use only cotton fabrics rather than synthetic blends, hence the need to make it all fit. The two girls have matching pants (which they'd already taken home before I got the tops made) and then the tiny boy had to have a top and pants out of many scraps. I managed in the end but it was a near run thing.....as I mentioned, there was cursing and much gnashing of teeth. The girls of course are delighted to be all matchy with their new brother and I'm ecstatic once again to have used some of the Stuff!!!!


So, my lovelies! There you have it - what I did in June! I must say though that July has been a very different month indeed. I'm not sure July will even qualify for a sustainable month post actually!

Thanks so much for stopping by and leaving a comment. I'll be popping in to see you all later on today, as my spare hour is up for now. ;)

sustainable living may

Well. Another month and another sustainable living post. I think I'm going to start writing these posts right throughout the month because when it comes to the crunch, I'm a bit lost as to what I've been doing all month!! I don't take a pic of everything I do after all!

Never mind, I have remembered a few occasions, some food and some things to be grateful for....so I could just have enough for some interesting reading ;o)

nourish: we've been in this lovely house almost a month now and have settled into something of a rhythm. This means that I have been able to spend time getting our meals into how we would like them to be - healthy and (mostly) plant based. I have to tell you that it's quite a novelty just preparing for two and very easy indeed! When I say 'mostly' plant based thats because Stuy vacillates between vegan, sometimes vegetarian and occasionally carnivorous...sigh. I'm fine with that though because he has always been the BEST person to cook for and will eat absolutely everything I put in front of him!  So he happily eats plant based with me though sometimes adds cheese haha!! 

Anyway this month I've started up my old juicer and we've been having a mid morning green juice in the sporadic sunshine. Those are my daily ingredients in the photo and sometimes (if it's a tad too 'green') we add a dash of coconut water for a bit of sweetness. I'm also still baking bread most days but have been gifting it to my children - Stuy and I do love it when it's so nice and fresh, but I try to mostly stay away from gluten. 

lessen: I'm not even sure what to write about here but I suppose I have been lessening some of my 'stuff'. And I have a lot of it to lessen! I'm hoping by the end of next month I'll have made a start!! 

grow: there's no growing anything out here on the property. The wallaby and possum population are out of control and will eat anything thats green! I don't mind too much since its winter so nothing much grows here anyway, however I do miss having some fresh greens for salads. My solution? Starting my sprouter up again! I've bought alfalfa and fenugreek seeds, as well as some celery seeds which I've never sprouted before. And I'm waiting for the health food shop to order some broccoli sprout seeds because they are full of anti-oxidants and super healthy! 

thankful: this is where I try to tell myself that autumn and winter are glorious seasons ;o) Well, ok autumn isn't too bad because there is a certain beauty in all the golden toned leaves that carpet the lawns and parks. And it does help when one is dressed to match haha!!! But winter is next and I have yet to find anything great about winter that overrides the relentless cold and dreariness. 

So here's to being thankful for bright crunchy leaves, wood smoke, walks in the park in nearby towns and hot comforting soups by the fire. 

create: according to the photo's on my computer, I've achieved at least three creative things in May! Firstly there was the stitching job on my jeans. I bought these with some very trendy holes in the knees....my teen daughter was suitably impressed and declared me to be 'on fleek' ;o) Indeed over summer I felt quite with it.....however, when the cooler weather descended upon us, my knees and I decided that we'd had enough of being trendy (and cold) and I spent a little time filling those ragged holes in with needle and thread. I think it's called visible mending and I'm quite happy with the result. So are my knees.

I also unboxed the old woollen blanket that I'd earmarked for hottie covers and did whip up a quick one for myself. Oh it makes such a difference getting into bed when theres a warm spot at the end of it! I know thats there's such things as electric blankets but we've never been fans of them (I'm just not sure I want to sleep on an electricity field!) so I make do with a hottie. 

And then theres the two dish cloths I crocheted. The exceedingly bright orange cotton yarn came from the op-shop and matches the orange in the kitchen cupboards quite well I think. It is also giving off a continuous amount of bright orange dye that doesn't seem to be abating after a week of washing up! Perhaps that's why those two balls of yarn were at the op-shop!!

fun: and last but certainly not least, we have the fun times! There was a delightful day out with my love to a neighbouring town; there have been numerous dinners with with children and grandchildren; there was a memorable and much needed evening with a few girlfriends that didn't end until 4am (who knew we could still manage to party till the wee hours)!!! Stuy had a birthday and we had a lovely lunch picnic on the top of our hill. Really, when I think about it, there was a lot of fun and goings on in May! Which is a Good Thing after the last few months, don't you think?

And there goes May. I hope you've enjoyed having a teeny peek at my month. Have a read of Sustainable Mums month as well - she has lots of interesting thoughts and things going on.

Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment - I am so enjoying the interactions with you all!

sustainable living april

Years ago I joined in with an Aussie blogger - Slow Living Essentials - and her Monthly 9 round up, which was always a great way to remember and reflect on what had been memorable in the month gone by. That was when I was still entirely at home with the younger children, still grew lots of veggies and had lots of zest to sew and repurpose everything! I still do the repurposing bit but the children have flown and the garden is quite overgrown. Did you see what I did there? It rhymes!!

Anyway, I eventually ran out of blogging puff and then headed out into the world to study. It really was just what I needed at the time though and I learnt a lot about myself as well as the particular psychotherapy I was studying. It was the first time I had studied other than school and it certainly inspired me to perhaps do some more in the future.

So imagine how excited I was to find that Sustainable Mum was doing a very similar monthly round up of all things slow and special and sustainable? I find that its very easy for me to think back over the past month or past year even, and just see all the things I hadn't done or achieved. Sure there are many of those Not Done Things since I have a very active imagination and a lot of things on my to-do-one-day list but many of them do get done. And many of them are focused on sustainability and lightening our footprint on our amazing Mother Earth.

So here goes with my April happenings -

nourish: This month has been all about storing the abundance available in autumn. When the virus first became a pandemic and we were all forced to stay home, my daughter and I decided that we might need to make the most of the autumn fruit harvest. She is in the hospitality industry and knew that her job was on the line (yes, she's out of work now) and I just couldn't pass up what was a very abundant year for fruit. I think we spent most of April either foraging fruit, cooking it up or finding new places to store it!

lessen: There've been two things that have stood out since we've been closeted at home and they are related - using less fuel and eating out less not at all. Firstly fuel. Being aware of the need to lighten our footsteps and actually doing it are not always on the same page. We can afford to fill our fuel tanks weekly or more if need be and so we did! A quick trip to town for a drill bit or some nails; a jaunt to the beach on the spur of the moment; an outing simply because we feel like it; all of them add up and are not strictly necessary. Well, none of that's been happening!

And then theres the eating out. Until about 13 years ago, Stuy and I had been on one dinner date. Seriously. One. With a bunch of children, one income and no baby-sitters there wasn't much scope for personal outings. I think though it was also that we'd never grown up in this new 'cafe culture'. Neither of our parents went to cafes or out for dinner in a restaurant - in the 70's it just didn't seem to be a 'thing' for them. When we first met in the very early 80's we sometimes went with a group of friends to a Chinese restaurant for a birthday occasion but mostly we went camping or to the pub! But after babies? Nothing!

In the last few years going to a cafe once or twice a week has become quite usual for us though! And while we are aware of the drain on the purse, we went anyway. Now we haven't been for at least a month and I must say its been rather nice in an unexpected way. Of course the money saved is great but I'm also finding that its nice not to feel sort of.... obligated to catch up with friends at the cafe. I do miss seeing people but not as much as I thought I would and its actually really nice to not have that pull to go out. Does that make sense?

So on both counts we've lessened the outings and the obvious winner is that we've saved money!

grow: Once again this one is connected to daughter Bee. When we harvested the last of the zucchini, corn and beans in her garden there was a lovely gap in the beds. So we planted perpetual spinach, coriander and parsley. I was wanting some kale as well - however according to Bee, kale attracts cabbage moths which results in green caterpillars. Bee has a serious phobia with caterpillars - since she was in her early teens in fact - so anything that promotes them is out of the garden asap!!

(I wonder if maybe her phobia comes from the lovely fat silk worms we kept on the sideboard every year when she was a child? I loved them but perhaps there was a Traumatic Incident at some point.....like a squashed one maybe).

So now she sticks to non-brassicas. Just in case ;)



thankful: Many things to be thankful for but one of my big ones is that I get to spend extra time with some of my children. If we'd taken the bus back up to northern NSW in April as we were going to, we would not be spending such a wonderful time with Bee and partner. She is number 5 in the ranks and rather quiet, so its been really lovely to make up for some of that missing one on one time that may not have been in great supply when she was growing up.

I haven't mentioned this yet because I want to do a separate post about it...but I have a new grandchild! I would have missed his first year almost completely but because we are 'grounded' I'll be seeing him right up until Christmas I hope! And of course his mama (our oldest daughter) and his two sweet older sisters too.

And lastly, I'm grateful because Son 2 and partner have cut short their around Australia travels and have come home to Tasmania for the foreseeable future. Fortunately they are also quite happy to be back at home so all is well!

create: Due to much food-ish types of happenings, theres been very little of anything else creative but there was a back log of mending. I don't know about you but mending is one of my least liked tasks - second only to modifying garments - and my mending waits a long time! Stuy tears his shirts on a regular basis and I refuse to buy new ones, so it's only if I happen to find one at the op shop that he gets replacements. The checked one below was pretty badly in need of throwing out but I just added a large piece of that blue/purple flannelette underneath and zigzagged away!! It's certainly not a fabulous mending job but it did the trick and should last him over winter when it's covered by a jumper anyway! 

In other sewing - Bee's flatmate needed his work pants fixed (also a major tear!), Stuy needed a small tear in a pair of jeans mended.....

.....and I spent a lovely afternoon sewing up a bunch of fruit and veg bags out of a piece of chiffon type fabric that I'd picked up at an op shop. I usually use floral net curtaining which works really well but wanted to use up the chiffon-ish stuff. I don't bother with a tie up bit at the top - after all the plastic veg bags don't have them either and they just add extra weight.  

learn: I've banged on about this before (like in my last post!) but I have been perfecting my sourdough skills - along with the rest of the world it seems! I tend to read just part of any given instructions and then head off on my own and as usual that's what happened here. But I did re-read and re-search and tried a few different things and its been working every time I baked in the last couple of weeks.

I've also learnt that I'm more of a homebody than I'd thought. I'm liking these stay at home times. I'm enjoying not having visitors. I love the lack of car trips. So I think I'll be looking at spending more time at home again even when all this isolation is over. We shall see.


fun: All things considered, April was filled with lots of fun times as well as virus worries. There were jigsaws done which is not a usual occurrence, we played various games and we had a little 'homies party'. We went 'camping' and had jaffles for dinner in the backyard and we searched recipe books for new meals to try. Most fun of all was just being together.

Well, if you've read right to the end, well done!!

And if you are a new friend, thank you so much for stopping by and leaving a comment. I'm really enjoying visiting you all in return and getting to know you post by post!