The girls have been laying like crazy lately. I had my first day of 10 eggs (from 10 hens) yesterday.

It's been beautiful weather. Nice enough for me to get a little sunburnt when planting some trees. Time to break out the sunhats, sunblock and build shady huts for the kids where they can guard their treasure!

Frozen blueberries (one day they'll be my homegrown ones), a litte sugar and some homemade yoghurt - who needs plastic punnets with artificial bits and pieces? Am I mad to dream about owning a housecow?

I made the leap!

My dear hubby mowing the grass with his favourite toy!

I've been reducing my use of plastic shopping bags, just like most people, the ad campaigns are hard to ignore! But every now and then I would do a grocery shop without my reusable sacks, just to get enough plastic bags to use as my rubbish bin liners. They fit my kitchen bin perfectly, make it really easy to lift out the rubbish to put in the big rubbish bin outside and keep everything nice and tidy. Convenience at the max!

But I got thinking about it. Why do I do this? I'm just putting another layer of plastic into landfills and I don't really NEED a liner anyway. I have a compost heap, a wormfarm, chickens and dogs so no food scraps ever go near my bin. I wash my meat wrappings out before they go in the bin so they don't smell and I hardly ever use disposable nappies. So my rubbish is far from offensive.

So a few weeks ago I took the leap and stopped using a bag to line my bin. And it was fine! Truly it was! The first time I needed to empty the bin I just upended the bin into my big sack outside, gave the inner bin a quick squirt with the hose, let it dry and, hey presto, all done! Why, oh why, did I not do this before?

I was listening to Radio New Zealand the other day about one of the large supermarket chains retracting their 5 cent charge per bag due to customer pressure. There was a man from the ?Packaging Association or somesuch who was saying that with the drop in plastic shopping bag use, there has been a corresponding rise in the purchase of bags for rubbish bin liners. Well, I'm happy to say - not by me!!

PS I put the photo of the tractor up, 'cause I didn't think you wanted to see the inside of my rubbish bin!

Nap Naps

My little girl is toilet training. It'll be great, but it's kinda sad too. One more step towards growing up.

I really like cloth nappies. I plug them at my antenatal classes, showing them a few of my 'stash' and letting them know that there is soooo much more choice than the old flannelette squares and plastic overpants. I mean, if you have to wear something large and unwieldy over your butt, you may as well have some funky colours and some nice soft fleece next to your skin.

The above pic is most of my stash, minus a few in the wash and probably one insitu. I use pocket nappies because they combine ease of use with quick drying. My fav New-Zealand made brand is Tweedles, good quality fabric, cool colours and patterns and nice fit. Although Harmony are pretty good too, except with the envelope opening at the front you can't stick your hand in and test the wetness of the inner very easily. I made my own inners, figuring I could save a bit of money (I did), but knowing that in my post-baby fug I wouldn't be able to manage sewing the whole outer too. I bought my microfibre and my hemp from Greenbeans.

The one thing I hadn't considered with toilet training is the trouser fitting problem. It's very amusing watching previously snug-fitting trousers slide southwards when worn over knickers!

Back again.

Little quilt for the hospital I finished with all my internet-free time.

Thanks everyone for your supportive comments in the trialling broad-band-free time that I've been through ;)

I rang the 'really-cheap-but-lacking-in-customer-service' internet provider this morning and they said,"Your broadband has been active for almost two weeks, did you not receive a phone call to help you access it?" Well, no, actually I didn't. Perhaps that's why I'm ringing you?

Actually I wasn't quite so sarcastic, but I sure felt like being witchy. Anyway, water under the bridge, I have internet again.

I knew I liked the web, but it took this enforced break to realise how much I actually USE the net (as opposed to just passing time on it). There were recipes I couldn't look up, gardening sites I couldn't access for advice, people I couldn't keep in touch with and vice versa, phone numbers I couldn't find, questions my son asked me that I couldn't answer, and I felt quite isolated as I couldn't access blogs of like-minded people and people who I feel I'm learning a lot from at the moment.

It made me a little concerned. What if the world does all turn pear shaped and we all suddenly have to be a lot more self-sufficient? What if, for whatever reason, I lose the internet for good? There is so much knowledge to be had on the web, it amazes me. I don't really buy 'knowledge' type books anymore as I feel that I can find anything I need on-line. But if it all went bust, where would that knowledge be?

My recent Op shop finds: a jersey that felted fantastically and a book of soft toy patterns

In conclusion, I've started thinking about a few things. Like wondering if I should do some formal sort of learning around gardening and sustainability, like these workshops here. I've also decided to do some thinking about goals - what do I want to achieve, where do I want to be in 2, 5 ,10 years time, and what do I need to get there? (Very deep and meaningful, I know).

And I'm going to start being a little more organised with my interests. This means getting some folders with labels on the outside and writing or printing out the tidbits I find and keeping them in hard copy. I will endeavour to write recipes down when I find them instead of trying to find them again later, or worse, forgetting about them completely. I'm going to start using the local library's online service to request books I want instead of writing them down and then losing my list!

Simple lemon cake - I recipe I DID write down.

And last, but not least, I'm going to try and meet more local people, interested in the things I'm interested in, by making the effort to get along to local meetings. For example, I'm a member of Forest and Bird, yet I have NEVER been to a local meeting, not once!

Frustrated!

More than a week ago I changed my internet provider. I must say they are VERY efficient at calling up my previous provider and cancelling my account.....however, they are lagging just a TEENSY bit on getting me hooked up again through them.

I feel like having a little tanty.

But I'm scared that will prove I'm more than a little addicted to the web.

I'm at work and it's six o'clock in the morning and I've been reading all my favourite blogs.

I MISS YOU ALL!!