My hunter gatherer genes take over!

Thank you all for your comments on my previous post re pens.  I wouldn't like you to think that I sit here worrying all the time about the environment for as Dreaming in Stitches said there is no black and white in being green!  The post was supposed to be a slightly humorous tongue in cheek sort of post but on a subject which does concern me.  I am always glad to see other people's opinions though and am open to any suggestions.  However just because my nano efforts won't make a dot of difference doesn't mean I shouldn't try and if we all did maybe it would make a difference.  I feel better for having tried anyway!

Anyway another week another post and this past week has been busy for us as with nothing in the diary we decided to use the time to do some of the things we've been meaning to do but not getting round to.  For a start we decided not to do any food shopping but to use up what we already had.

I keep a stock of things in the freezer and cupboards in case we can't get to the shops when the snow is on the ground or we fall ill with colds or something but since it is unlikely that there will be snow any time soon I thought we should eat what we had and defrost the freezer in readiness for new stocks.  So we had some odd meals last week and sometimes we each had something different but the freezer and fridge were sorted out and defrosted and by Saturday the fridge was bare - well almost! 

Another job we wanted to get done was behind the fence where the wood threatens to take over our garden - you may remember I did it a couple of years ago and posted here about it.  Well of course it didn't stay cleared and although we did a bit last year we were back to where we started again now.  So donning my wellie boots, stout gloves and old waxed jacket (it was too hot but it did offer some sort of protection!) I clambered through the fence and made a start on the nettles and brambles along with the rosa rugosa which had spread from our side of the fence to form an almost impenetrable jungle taller than me by several feet!  Mr M joined me after a while and took on the job of raking the cuttings to the end of the fence where we formed a huge compost pile or wildlife refuge perhaps?  Our reward for all this labour was a harvest of blackberries which was then revealed and which for a little light relief I picked and we had in a crumble pudding (using the remains of a loaf of bread for the breadcrumbs) for dessert.  I now also have several pounds of them in the freezer which had been defrosted in readiness.  Whilst the path remains cleared I intend to pick more as they ripen and then we'll have plenty of blackberries if nothing else during the winter!

This morning I woke to see an apricot light on the rose hips along the boundary of the wood and resolved to pick some and make something with them.  I had, during my rest breaks from my machete wielding activities, been reading The Thrifty Forager by Alys Fowler and she had given a recipe for rose hip syrup which I had thought I'd try and then I noticed in the magazine Landscape in Smith's yesterday that there was an article on using rose hips and a recipe for jam which I liked the sound of but not wanting to buy the magazine I tried to remember what it said!

I gathered my rosehips while I may to quote roughly Robert Herrick's poem illustrated below by John William Waterhouse...

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.

Must say I wouldn't have fancied gathering my rosehips or buds with bare feet though!

....and set to.  I decided to try the jam which was actually a cheese really as I sieved the pulp.  I did try to deseed each rosehip but I don't think I needed to bother since I would be sieving the fruit anyway and it was awfully fiddly.  I added a couple of crab apples for pectin and guessed at the quantities of water and sugar and produced a few pots of what I hoped would be a useful preserve.

I made a few scones to go with our afternoon cup of tea and tried the leftovers on my scone.  It hadn't set properly and although Delia tells me I could tip it all back in the pan with the juice of a lemon and boil it up again I think I might just keep it as it is and use it on my porridge instead of honey or as a syrup over ice cream or something as it is a bit bland and very sweet.  Of course I could also dilute it with hot water to make a drink for when we have a cold as it is supposed to be high in Vit C - those of us of a certain age will remember taking it by the spoonful when oranges were so had to obtain after the war.

We have a lot of self seeded nasturtiums in the garden and I have been adding a few flowers to my salads for weeks now and I also tried pickling some of the seeds which are supposed to be rather like capers.  Why I would bother since I don't think I have ever used capers in anything I don't know but my hunter gatherer genes suggested I should try it.  If it's there for the gathering I feel impelled to use it be it rosehips, blackberries or nasturtiums!

I have no idea whether they taste like capers nor whether I will actually use them but here they are.  Every time I see the name Sacla I am reminded of the little You tube video I showed you here  which in case you didn't see it I make no apology for adding again below!

So what with all this messing about the week sped by and although I hoped to be able to show you my finished bag I fear it is no further forward than it was before since I decided it was too thick to stitch with the pocket on the back and unpicked it and removed the pocket before sewing it back together; then the lining had me flummoxed as it seemed a bit thin and I feared the bag wouldn't have enough body so I unpicked that and added a layer of felt to it to stiffen it but now it's too thick and I fear the bag might end up in the back of the cupboard before long.

This coming week I have more social activities so there won't be so much time for hunting nor gathering but I did wonder whether to set myself a little challenge and try not to use the oven for a week having read that generating electricity is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions worldwide - not that the generators of electricity will produce less if I use less so again it's not black and white but a grey area.  I might try some one pot recipes on the gas hob this week or maybe even the electric slow cooker - it will be interesting to see how much difference it will make to the weekly readings we take.  But I shan't be worrying too much about it and as I don't think Mr M will take kindly to reading by candle-light and my cooking his dinners in a hay box I shan't be going too far with it all!

It's not easy being Green!

We have a pad of scrap paper - backs of things mainly - on the kitchen table and a pot of assorted biros to hand with which to write our shopping lists, notes, make calculations or draw diagrams of things we are trying to explain to each other.  The pen stock has diminished over the years and we now have difficulty finding something to write with at times so new writing implements were called for.  Not wanting to buy disposable pens which will just add to the amount of plastic being thrown away we were on the look out for something "greener".

We must have spent half an hour looking at pens in W H Smiths yesterday morning and although there were dozens to choose from hardly any were refillable, a couple were 70% biodegradable but only came in green or red ink, there were no refills available for the refillable pens .... it seemed a hopeless quest.

This afternoon Mr M has been researching on the internet looking for ecological types of pen and although there are pens out there that are "green" many have to be bought by the 100 and we only want a couple or else they are available in the USA but no mention of here or ...... !  Maybe I should try making a quill pen and some elderberry ink?!  We do both have fountain pens and maybe that would be the answer or perhaps a pencil as long as the pencil was made of something recycled or biodegradable and not plastic!

Yesterday we also went to our local health shop to buy a 5 litre pack of Ecover washing up liquid from which we fill our small bottle by the sink.  We normally have to order this but today we noticed that there was a choice of Vegan or non vegan 5 litre washing up liquids!  Since the Wanderer has taken to being a "nearly" vegan I was interested to find out what the difference was as I guessed/hoped that Ecover didn't test on animals.  It seems that what is called Chamomile and Marigold in English is called Chamomile et Petit-lait in French and on checking the dictionary petit-lait is whey and not marigold which I know is souci.  So is it better to buy the vegan version or would the whey be going to waste if not used in the washing up liquid?! I shan't tell the Wanderer next time she comes about our washing up liquid containing animal products!

We shopped for our milk, eggs and some vegetables at the farm shop we usually patronise a couple of miles from home this morning too and earlier in the week we drove to a nearby town South Petherton where we like to buy our bread from the local baker, our fruit and vegetables from the green grocer and Mr M likes meat from the butcher.  All well and good but is it greener to be supporting the local shops where the owners take a pride in their produce and know where it all comes from (mainly local apart from oranges and bananas of course although we did once hear a stall holder at Salisbury market shouting out his wares amongst which were "Lovely British bananas"!) but using the car to drive to these shops or to go to the supermarket which we could walk to but where much of their stock has itself traveled many thousands of miles even though we might not ourselves be adding to our carbon footprint?

Sometimes I feel I shall give up and drive to the supermarket to buy a packet of sliced bread and some ready meals and if I don't take a list I won't need a pen to write one either!

Down the garden path - thoughts on gardening

A recent post by CJ on Above the River (a lovely blog do pop over and visit) started me thinking about gardening and how sometimes I love it and sometimes I feel overwhelmed by it all and can quite see the appeal of a flat with a balcony and a few pots of geraniums!  When we lived in France one of the things we thought we'd like was the huge garden which was mostly grass and lots and lots of trees and shrubs - a blank canvas we thought.  We soon discovered that retirement when suddenly there are fewer hours in each day or so it seems is not the time to take on such a mamoth task and unlike when we were younger and took on an allotment covered all over with blackberry bushes taller than we were we just didn't have the physical strength nor the energy and motivation we had back then and we were too busy trying to keep on top of it all to enjoying having so much space .  So one thing we wanted when we moved back to England was a smaller garden!  Be careful what you wish for eh?

We love the fact that our garden here is bordered by a wood both for privacy and peace - I love opening the back door early in the morning and smelling the fresh green smell and hearing the birds busy singing in the trees.  No need here to plant things to attract wildlife to our garden it's all there on the other side of the fence and the wildlife visits our garden too of course.  There are badgers, squirrels, birds of every kind including owls at night and woodpeckers of the green and black varieties along with jays, robins, blackbirds thrushes and so on.  There are bats to be seen on summer evenings and occasionally a frog in the garden too as well as all the insect life and creatures busy beneath the soil.  Now obviously having all that woodland just the other side of the fence means that it is impossible to keep that border neatly weeded (let's face it we find it impossible to keep any of the garden neatly weeded!) as we now of course have even less energy than we did in France so it is just as well that we are not keen on the sort of garden that has striped lawns with borders neatly clipped and tidy rows of flowers sitting in shaped beds.  I have come to the conclusion that working with Nature rather than trying to force our ideas upon it is the way to go and so our garden is untidy and rather unruly but if we are happy with it like this does it matter? We do only what is necessary to keep it from turning into a complete wilderness such as cutting the grass (we never "mow the lawn" since ours isn't lawn but a daisy strewn grass/moss/weed patch) cut the hedge, pull a few weeds and trim here and there now and again.  Then we sit and admire our handiwork over a cup of tea on the bench!

When I said working "with Nature" here is an example of what I meant.  Our garden in France had some lovely tall foxgloves and I brought some seeds with me when we moved.  I thought that they might look good in the woodland border - but they had other ideas and decided they didn't want to compete with all that other stuff so seeded themselves on the pebbled area where I have my rotary washing line.  So now I have rigged up a heavy stone and a piece of rope tied to the arm of the line to prevent it rotating as anything longer than undies or socks is liable to decapitate the foxgloves!

We have had a garden for over 40 years and yet I feel I know no more about proper gardening now than I did before and never plan what I want and then buy the appropriate plants to fit my plan but rather shove plants in wherever there is a space or somewhere that I can actually get the trowel into the soil- it's all so hit and miss but I love the fact that our garden is planted with so many things which have a story such as these beautiful sweet peas which came to me originally as tiny wee plants carefully wrapped in damp tissue in a plastic carton posted from a friend in Surrey and which this year seem to have shinned up the netting at a rate of knots and have already given me these lovely blooms  which have a divine perfume whilst her own are apparently still being coaxed up to the first rung of the netting!  Maybe my style of gardening works after all.

These weeny strawberries do manage to survive in amongst the undergrowth along the woodland boundary and came originally from the same friend this time as a little matchbook of sticks each with a seed which you stuck in the ground and hoped would grow - this one the only one that did!

A little indoor gardening here - my salad leaves growing happily in an old ice cream carton - they'd never survive in the garden I've tried but the slugs and snails devour them.  The red plant also reminds me of a friend - this time in France who gave me some of her plant and now I have 4 pots of them this is just one and in the original terracotta post and saucer she gave me and which also had a story behind how she came by it.  Life and especially gardening life is full of stories.

I have been reading a most fascinating book - A Slow Passion - which I can really recommend.  Do click on the link for a review of what it is all about.and do read the book if you get chance - you will never look at a snail in the same way again I can promise you!  The book was informative, interesting and humourous and although the author doesn't come up with any real answer to why the snails kept eating her plants she does like me decide that perhaps all is how it should be and so the garden doesn't change but her attitude does.  A really lovely book.

Many thanks for your kind comments on my purple hair - I might do it again some time but never fear the tattoo was only a joke! 

Baby steps toward my goals!

You thought you'd got rid of me didn't you? But here I am again like the proverbial bad penny! These lovely daffodils are this week's fresh flowers - I refuse to buy flowers which have been air-freighted from sunnier climes and am finding it difficult to find many with the Union Jack on the pack just now but these fitted the bill nicely and serve to remind me that Spring is coming. I did actually see some in bud along the side of the road this morning too.

You asked (well some of you did!) me to let you know how I got on with my resolutions so here goes:

Gardening: Well I did spend an hour or so outside this week mainly doing what you might call outdoor housework - tidying up and removing leaves etc but most of this week's gardening was of the indoor kind - reading the seed catalogues and books...

DH has been busy in the garage with timber and tools making one of these compost bins to replace the ugly green plastic ones which were here when we moved in 2 years ago - it keeps him out of mischief and leaves me to get on indoors on my own.

The Sarah Raven catalogue arrived this week and lo and behold she is selling a similar compost bin for the princely sum of £180 - mind you if DH charged for the hours of labour he has put in no doubt ours would be even more expensive!!

Meanwhile I planted some peas in pots of compost indoors in the hope that we will get some pea shoots for salads etc - I did this last year and they were successful but as you will see from the pack the peas are not a recent acquisition having been bought when we lived in France so whether they will germinate again this year I don't know as it says best before August 2010 on the box - watch this space!

Exercise: I have walked to town 3 times this week so hope that will count towards being more active!

Next up Cooking: Well I made a couple of loaves of soda bread - Nigel Slater's recipe from his Simple Suppers programme - the first of which was very successful but the second not so although we did eat most of it. I had a couple of ends of loaves of bread in the bread bin and in the spirit of waste not want not I made the apple pudding shown in the pic. The topping is made with breadcrumbs from a sunflower loaf and it's delicious.

Again in waste not want not mode I used up the leftover veggies in the fridge along with a tin of red kidney beans and one of tomatoes and made this casserole which we had with dumplings. Sorry photo is a bit yellow but I took it in electric light in the kitchen. Today I have bought some oranges for marmalade too so will let you know how I get on with that later.

Have you ever noticed how once you start being interested in anything it seems to pop up everywhere? Well having got back on my (slightly) green bandwagon I have found this week filled with books and TV programmes etc along the same theme. One such was a news item regarding the new European law coming into force in 2012 banning conventional battery farming of chickens along with news that some eggs which had been laid in Germany contained dioxins - said eggs had come into the UK food chain having been processed in Holland and then sold to manufacturers in UK. Now I suddenly realised that whilst I am carefully buying free-range eggs I had also been buying occasional items containing eggs and of course these would be unlikely to be free range or organic. So if I am serious about going for free range I will in future need to read labels! (Another reason to make food from scratch as then you have a better idea of what goes into it)

Did anyone see the TV programmes Hugh's Fish Fight? I saw the first and third ones and was horrified at the apalling waste of fish so many of which are thrown back into the sea dead and also the very high density of fish in the fish farms from which so much of our salmon comes. I really do feel that if we all truly knew what we were eating we might easily starve!!

Have however been to the Farmers' Market this morning and have some lovely fresh salad leaves along with a nut pasty(?) for me and a pork pie for DH (he is as thin as a lathe so no need to cut back for him) and some fresh baked bread all locally made for supper and will not get too bogged down with all the horror stories - we can only do what we can but as the ad for one of our supermarkets says "Every little helps"!!!