Christmas 2019

Blooms from the pohutukawa - New Zealand's Christmas tree

Wow, where did the past year go??
It's Christmas Eve here in New Zealand. The eggnog is prepared in the fridge, as is the trifle, parts of the salads prepared to go with the cold chicken and ham. Family are bringing the potato salad and cheesecake. Plus there are all the trimmings, like cherries and fudge, camembert and crackers, pistachio nuts.

We've got raspberries and strawberries from the garden -  a benefit of Christmas in summer. The weather forecast is for cloudy and around 23 degrees - typical Christmas day here. 

Wooden Christmas tree, handmade by the seller's grandad, bought from a garage sale near Raglan.

How fortunate we are. It is this life that makes me want to help those less fortunate during the year - by redirecting spare food, books and clothing to those in need, saving those things from being wasted at the same time. 

Reusing old T-shirts is a great way to wrap bulky boxes. T-shirt yarn for ties.

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas wherever you are. May 2020 bring enlightenment to the world and prosperity of spirit. Kindness to all.

Sorrel, Orange Peel, 2040 - the Doco.

Sorrel 

Disregard the spelling mistake!

The other weekend I went to a plant and seed swap (just wonderful to do). The generous garden owner shared a taste of his sorrel and I couldn't believe that I had never tried this before - tangy, lemony goodness in a leaf! He kindly dug out a piece for anyone who wanted some. I can't wait for it to grow big enough to divide and make more plants, and to add to salads. It looks a bit like a weed at present so will need to stay well marked!
It's a plant that you don't need to keep planting - it just keeps on giving.


How to grow sorrel by Garden Lady at Sow Small Garden

It's full of nutritional goodness - read this link Benefits of sorrel leaves by tinyqualityhomes.org

Orange Peel

On my journey to use that-which-is-under-my-nose I wondered why I was composting our orange peels. We have a tree of the most divine navel oranges. I started saving the peel, by re-peeling them with a very sharp knife to remove the pith, then laying it on a splatter guard on top of a kitchen rack which I have been placing on our wood-stove at night. I don't leave it overnight though as it is quite flammable. I'm collecting it all in a jar and will powder this lot in the food processor. This first lot (above) I pulverized with the mortar and pestle.

I've been using it to add to teas, sprinkled in homemade muesli, in baking and added to my tooth powder (tooth whitener). It gives a delicious orange flavouring.
It too appears to have multiple health benefits...Health benefits of orange zest by Pioneer Thinking

I'm also soaking peels in white vinegar for a couple of weeks, then adding the vinegar to water and a few drops of castile soap for a spray cleaner.

2040 - the documentary

Have you heard of this documentary? It's just new out. It is a positive spin on how the world could be despite climate change. It is a bit utopian, but hey, hopefully it will all catch on. There were lots of people viewing it, and the first movie that I've heard a round of applause after.

So yes, recommended...get along and see it, or tell me what you thought if you've seen it already.

Milk Powder Yoghurt, Chocolate Chia Pudding

 Most of my readers will have probably perfected DIY yoghurt years ago, but this is for the ones like me who have had not-so-good results for years.
For a long time I wouldn't even try making yoghurt, other than from using sachets in the Easiyo maker, because I didn't think there was any point if I had to buy milk in plastic bottles. Since we can now get milk in glass I've tried again, but could not get it like the bought stuff, and ended up making a lot of chocolate chia pudding with the less than perfect results (recipe to follow). 

This recipe makes thick creamy yoghurt - from milk powder! 

Original poster Lisa Rogers says... Super easy! I know there are other ways, but this is how I do it in an esiyo maker (I always see heaps for cheap in op shops).
1. Use the FULL FAT blue milk powder - fill to the 450ml line on side of the esiyo jar (or weigh 200g)
2. Cover with luke warm water, add a dash of water from kettle that you need to boil anyway. Not stone cold, not too warm, just take the chill off. Put lid on and shake to mix.
3. Add 2 Tablespoons of FULL FAT UNSWEETENED GREEK yoghurt as your starter & top to litre line with water.
4. Mix again and place in esiyo maker with boiling water for 6-8 hours, or until set. Put in fridge - any liquid that forms on top can be poured off or mixed in.
You can then sweeten or flavour as you wish.
**Remember to save 2T from your batch to start the next batch.
**If it "cooks" too long it may go a bit lumpy, just whisk together in bowl and re-jar.
Cost: You can get 5 litres of yoghurt from a 1kg bag (Pams is about $8.80 at Pak n Save) === $1.76 per litre of yoghurt Super cheap!

We can buy milk powder packaging free here - so it's perfect. 
My lukewarm water was 35 degrees celsius (I have a thermometer) 
The culture can also be frozen as apparently it will only last for a few times of remaking before the culture becomes too weak.
Also I have read that it shouldn't be left in the fridge for longer than 2 weeks or the culture will die.

Chocolate Chia Pudding

1Tbsp of rice syrup (or 3-4 dates soaked and chopped)
4 Tbsp of chia seeds
1 cup of milk (or failed yoghurt)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix all with a food processor or stick blender and put in the fridge for 3 hours or so to set. 

2 Tablespoons of Chia contain:
 64% more potassium than a banana
 2x the antioxidants of blueberries
 41% of your daily fibre
 5x more calcium than milk
100% more omega 3 than salmon
3x more iron than spinach
32% of your daily magnesium
info from www.riseorganics.co.uk

Sweet Little Footlets

In order not to burden the world with more clothing, I try not to buy new...but there are some exceptions. We all have our own limits that we set and mine are socks, underwear, swimwear, night wear. So I have set out to try making my own versions of some of these.
I found a free pattern for footlets/ socklettes here on Sometimes it's the Little Things and although the first ones didn't fit my size 8 feet, it wasn't hard to scale them up.

I used some scraps of stretch material and lingerie elastic that I'd inherited from my mother's stash. So far it's cost me nothing but a little time - I'm thinking they only take about 15 minutes to make a pair, once the sizing was sorted.

I'm never going to be a foot model!

I merrily put them on with some shoes and the first thing that happened was that they scrunched down under my feet - oh no!

Now my bought footlets have a piece of silicone on the heel to stop them from doing that, so in town the next day I whipped into Spotlight and bought a small amount of swimwear elastic. It's rubber and could be bought in small amounts off the card.

Once home I hand sewed a 55mm piece to the inside back of my footlet - and it stayed put!

So now I can make these out of anything I like - but old tee shirt material is a winner. The elastic cost me $1.75 - enough for 3 pairs. There's no buying new plastic packaging or synthetic materials. What a great gift idea too.

So not only is this a win for me - but if you have footlets that slip down - give the elastic fix a try!

Green Parking, In the Sewing Mood

One of my goals for this year was to quit getting those plastic parking tickets from the parking machines. 
I'm ashamed to say that it has taken me far too long, but I have now logged on with mpark.co.nz and it was easy.
Now when I go to a carpark, all I have to do is log in on my phone and say how long I want to park for and pay. The beauty of this is that if I overstay my time, I can log in from wherever I am and extend the time without having to rush back from somewhere, or risk getting ticketed.

No more of these for me

Even after years ago deciding to stop using new plastic, I am still reducing plastic out of my life. 
Do you have this parking payment mode where you live?

We're finally getting sorted after our return from holiday. It has been hectic; preparing houses for new tenants and coping with the loss of Derek's 95 year old mother, just weeks after our return. Also our gardens were overgrown and seeds needed starting. 
I was hankering for a week in the studio, just pottering. Yesterday was the first day I managed...and this is what I got up to...

Sewed a button on daughter's boyfriend's pants (button was lost -  mum'll have one)
Made 10 produce bags (for the Boomerang bags stall at the Vegan Expo this weekend)
Repaired 2 teatowels - because I like mended stuff
Patched a pair of leggings that snagged on a stick while gardening - they now have a piece of black lace covering the mend, on black leggings.
Made a sewing machine dust cover - finally, after how many years??
Put a zip into a single use vacuum cleaner bag, so it's not single use any more. The zip was salvaged from my old work uniform.
Made an avocado ripening bag from an old blanket scrap. I'm dubious that this is going to work, but will post it if it does. It's meant to hasten ripening ++
Made a draught stopper snake from some knit fabric and scraps from the overlocker. It looks like a python that swallowed a villager, I think the next one will be an improvement hehe.  

It has been unseasonably cold today and I have been back in there again ...so much to do. I figure that if I complete lots of projects then there won't be so much to stash and tidy.

Of Chokos and Quinces

Hi All. Ok so it must be weird fruit week here.

I had not tried eating a choko since my mother served the tasteless, slimey things up when I was very young (quite some time ago).
They are often found in New Zealand in cardboard boxes with - "FREE - Help Yourself" written on them. After which they sit around and grow sprouts then get thrown out. 

He just looked in need of a face

It turns out that not many people like them.
When Derek brought one home (he likes them), I decided it was time to see if I could make them edible. You do need to peel them and cut them up small.
I tentatively added a quarter to a stir-fry....yep that's ok, can't taste it..then to a soup...again good....fritters, as a replacement for courgettes....again fine.
So last weekend when I saw another carton of free chokos...I picked one out and took it home!

Quinces

Quinces

This week we were given a bag of quinces. I've never cooked these before, but have tasted them in quince paste and a friend does a magnificent quince and chilli jelly.
I discovered a sticker on the fruit to say they had come from Pompallier House in Russell, so they are from a very old orchard, an heirloom variety.
I wasn't sure that they were going to taste any good, so stewed a few, then happy with the result I have stewed the lot. 
We've been eating them for breakfast, and they'll be good mixed with other fruit in crumbles etc.
Quinces are rather like pears in texture, and have a delicate but distinctive flavour of their own.

Pompallier House

photo courtesy of TripAdvisor

Bishop Pompallier bought land in Russell, Northland New Zealand in 1839. The building was constructed in 1841-2 for use as a printery, also housing a tannery for book binding. (They used urine to tan the leather back then).
In 1842 it produced it's first Maori translations of religious texts.
Pompallier House is open for visitors these days. It is about as old as buildings get here in New Zealand.



.<a href="https://www.tripadvisor.co.nz/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g255679-d2707238-i228589608-Pompallier_Mission_and_Printery-Russell_Bay_of_Islands_Northland_Region_.html#228589608"><img alt="" src="https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/0d/a0/00/28/garten-und-pompallier.jpg"/></a><br/>This photo of Pompallier Mission and Printery is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Reusable Gift Bags

Isn't it funny how you always do something one way - then you discover a new and better way. This time I'm talking about gift wrapping.For many years I haven't bought gift wrap, choosing to recycle anything I already had, but insisting that it has to look attractive.
For Christmas this year I made a few fabric gift bags, something I hadn't done before. I couldn't believe how easy it made gift wrapping - and of course the big plus side is that they can be reused time and time again. Also it gets other people (the recipients) using them (hopefully), if not they can give them back.

You don't really see fabric gift bags for sale anywhere do you - apart from maybe online craft sites. So I had a great idea - gift bags for every occasion. 

Fabric gift bags

I flew my idea past a friend who runs an annual Early Childhood Education conference with an environmental theme. She loved it - they want to use them as part of the environmentally friendly conference bags.
The bags can have a drawstring threaded through them and be used to hold kids toys or even as snack bags, or they can be tied with recycled ribbons, hemp string, or even fabric scraps to give gifts in.
So, I have an order for 200 - but I have until November. I am using donated fabric remnants and recycled materials to make them.

Tomatoes

One morning's pick

Derek's catch cry was "You can never have too many tomatoes". Well we have been giving them away, roasting and freezing them and of course enjoying them fresh and in savoury dishes. No, you can never have too many!

A Little Piece of Paradise

Wow - Happy New Year! 
This is busy season for us, if you had wondered why I have disappeared.
We live on the coast, so summer is when we get more visitors than usual. It's also the time when our band is busiest, currently playing 1-2 nights/ week.
And the garden - watering, mowing lawns, picking veg and bottling fruit....and Christmas in the middle of all that! 

Visitors with camera, impressed by home baking - rare shot of self.

We had a visit from Derek's brother and his wife recently. The best part for them is if we can get down the river for the day. I whipped up date scones and pikelets to take as we stay down there for morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea so that we can catch the incoming tide on the way home.

You can see our place - a little white speck on the green between our heads

We all piled into our little boat for what is a ten minute trip to the river mouth where there is the loveliest usually-deserted beach.

This year the mussels were thick, and a super low tide meant we didn't even need to swim to get them.

I just found a nice sandy place to kneel down - that's brother-in-law Jack

 With easily getting our limit of 25 mussels per person, we had enough for 4 meals of mussels - first with white wine, plus some of the fish I caught on the way home and other ingredients - a simple bouillabaise.
The next night they were done with coconut cream, and the other fish, a kahawai, was marinated in lime juice, then had coconut cream plus other things like chilli and spring onion added.
Next day mussel fritters. 
The rest I gave to my daughter who loves them.

It has mostly been beautiful weather here -I hope it holds out for Saturday, when our band will be playing in the garden bar of the Towai Tavern 

Garden bar awaiting a band

A New Project

Monday mornings are to be celebrated by those who have jumped off the mainstream workforce in my opinion. So happy to have my man along on those good times now.

This is Frogtown beach, a short drive and a 2km walk from home. We had it all to ourselves and enjoyed a glorious late Autumn morning there. We picked up a shopping bag of plastic and such, which makes it a walk with result.

I'm excited to say we have a new project on the boil for Plastic Bag Free Northland. We've had approval from the Countdown Regent supermarket manager to have a stall at the supermarket entrance to promote reusable bags and to promote their soft plastic recycling bin that is in-store.

My newly painted signs. The background mountains are the view from Whangarei Harbour

We have a month's trial starting June, and it will be very interesting to see what kind of response we get. At present there are very few reusable bag users at that supermarket - we want to change the trend.
We are not using nice handmade bags, as we just can't supply enough, but have sourced a supply of the ones made from recycled plastic, that should save at least 100 plastic bags each in their life, if used consistently. We do have calico ones too, but they are $2.50 each. 
I'll let you know how it goes.

Feijoas

Ah well, it's feijoa season again and I'm off to do something with all these...I have recipes for low sugar feijoa loaf, no churn feijoa icecream, and some will go into the freezer for later in the year. 
I'm delighted that my guava moth traps seem to have worked, we've had no bugs in any of our fruit this year.

Happy New Year, DIY Healthy Diet Tonic

Happy 2017! I hope it is a good one for all of you. 
For many 2016 was not so good, but personally, I had a great year. It was the year that I got in with some like-minded people to make a difference to our environment - further here about our plastic-free market project. Our band had it's best year ever, and generally, life has been sweet.

If you look at what is going on around the world it is easy to feel alarmed. I find that taking as much action as I can, and seeking out positive news helps to keep a balance mentally.

One little, spontaneous thing we did on Christmas Eve gave us such a buzz of enjoyment.
As Derek and I drove home from town, we came across a straggle of Te Araroa walkers, (more about them on a previous blog here), while they were still 15 minutes walk from our place. We decided to make a surprise Christmas morning tea for them, so as they rounded the bend, they were met with a hurriedly set up table and chairs, Christmas cake, chocolates and chocolate biscuits, stollen, cherries and iced orange drink. 

The looks on their faces were priceless, they were so excited. They were all from countries overseas, and they said they had not felt like it was Christmas (no snow for a start).
After stopping with us for nearly an hour, they trailed off to walk the rest of New Zealand, our Christmas decorations (donated) hung from various parts of their packs. 

So 2017? Well no resolutions, as usual, as I just jump in and do things as they occur to me. But this year my Derek retires (early), and we have a couple of overseas trips planned. I plan to use these trips to look at ways that other people are doing great things and clever ideas, plus have fun and catch up with family.
I plan to continue eating healthier, getting moving more, and doing my utmost personally for a better world - writing letters, being an influencer, not buying new, making as much as I can myself...
So on that note - here's my recipe (thank you Wendyl Nissen) for 

 DIY Diet Tonic

juice of 2 lemons
1/4 tsp stevia powder
1 tsp honey
10 drops of angostura bitters

Mix together and add to 1 litre of soda water (that's where my bargain soda stream machine comes in).

It's low calorie and so much nicer than bought diet tonic - let alone cheaper and more environmentally friendly if you make the soda water yourself.
Needless to say, it goes great with gin.

Cheers - here's to 2017!

So, What Have You Been Up To?

Yesterday I had lunch with sixteen of my ex-colleagues, in honour of one who has returned briefly from USA to visit. It was her first time reunited with many of us for about 24 years, so there was a lot of noise and catching up.
Someone asked me what I had been up to - and it's so hard to put it into words, so here is a pictorial.

Mondays are for walks on the local beach, exercising the dog and myself, plus picking up plastic etc.

The garden has been keeping me busy - raising seeds, getting them into the garden. There's corn, beans, garlic, lettuces, spring onions, peas, spinach, beetroot, cucumbers, courgettes, strawberries, kale, silverbeet, tomatoes, coriander etc..

The tamarillo trees that I raised from seed are getting planted out

This is a fishing float, a bit worse for wear that I rescued off the beach. I decided to repurpose it, rather than throw it out.

Today I have been making Guava Moth traps. I will wait until these are proven successful, then post the recipe. I'm not sure where else in the world they have these blighters, but they do so much damage to fruit.

Guava moth traps - reportedly very effective

Today I have also spent a couple of hours packaging meat for the freezer. I buy it paper wrapped from the local butcher. It is a way to reuse the small amount of food packaging that I still get. The paper wrapping all goes into the compost. 

An update on my No Junk Mail Signs that I hand delivered (from about 4 posts back) - there are now three up out of the fifteen or so delivered. Yay, three less households getting all that Junk Mail! 

It's a quiet life, but busy enough. Now - on to my sax practice!

My two saxophones - that's a vintage car in behind there at a gig we played in a workshop

Teaching Natural Beauty Recipes

 Katie (15) asked me to buy her some Sea Salt Spray for her hair to encourage her hair into ringlet type curls. I felt a bit mean, but I took a photo of the label of the product in the supermarket (@$18) and said I would like her to try one that I make first, and then if she's not happy with it I would buy her one.

I was fairly confident - and she's happy with it. 
It's good to look up all those chemicals so that you know what they do when you are copying a product. Most of these are preservatives and for keeping the solution in suspension. We can just shake the bottle.

Sea Salt Hair Treatment

Sea Salt Hair Treatment
1 cup of warm - hot water
1 tablespoon of sea salt (rock salt)
1 teaspoon of glycerine
6 drops of essential oil (we used ylang ylang)
1 dessert spoon of jojoba oil
Dissolve together, pour into a spray bottle(which we already had), shake before each use.

I want her to think about sustainable ways of achieving what she wants, and with her whole life ahead of her, she will save herself a lot of money if she's not sold on having to pay money for products for them to be successful.
This follows quickly after a nasty rash she developed after using a disposable plastic razor, one that had moisturizing chemicals on it. It was a fine opportunity for me to buy her a reusable one that just requires standard blades. She had tried my Sugaring Wax, but found it too difficult to manage. The reusable razor is a success.

So when Katie was wishing for some Lush Bath Bombs to add to a friend's birthday present I told her she can make those, because I've done it successfully before. She hopped online and found a good recipe, and whipped these up.

Bath Bombs

The large ones sell for $10 in Lush, so she made $50 worth of bath bombs with what we already had in the house - citric acid, baking soda, epsom salts, coconut oil, colouring, essential oil. She tried one out last night - it worked perfectly.

I just wrote a letter to the editor of the Sunday Star Times after reading this article about how to get rid of bumps on the back of your arms. 

They recommended two products costing $79 and $46.99 respectively. I suggested that they could run an article on natural products, such as organic coconut oil that would smooth the whole body for months for about $12. Now that would be a real service to women and the environment.
One of the advantages of making beauty products for yourself is that you know exactly what is in them, and in this day and age we do not need a cocktail of more chemicals.

Permission to Play

Hooray! I finally finished my tax books and got them to the accountant. Now that my most despised chore is done, I gave myself permission to play.

In my last post I talked about what people were artfully doing with beach plastic. Well here are a few pieces that I made - totally without any idea of what I plan to do with them. I have put brooch backs on a couple, but well, got that out of my system.

My beach plastic creations

Some time back I joined a Make Do and Mend Facebook page. Someone on there was mending tea towels. Now most of us would just say - they're not expensive, just go buy some new ones, but I liked the quirkiness of the mend. Plus who else can admit to still using them even when they have a hole in them. So this one might come under "Lady you look like you have too much time on your hands", but I like it. 

Mending teatowels

Talking about play - a few weeks back I bought this little beauty off TradeMe (our Ebay).

 Never having owned an overlocker before, I was a little scared of it. I asked for a lesson on how to thread it from the nice Chinese man (a sewing machine fixer-upper) that I bought it off. Given that he didn't speak any English, it was very kind of him. Now I have the hang of it and am using it to make those net bags for the market (two posts ago), which I can knock out in 10 minutes from cutting to threaded drawstring.
It has been great learning this new skill from the internet and a fabulous book on serging from the library. I can now use that new knowledge helping others at SewGood, our community sewing group.

Sometimes my days are so busy that I fantasize about taking a day off! And I'm retired !! (apart from playing in the band and running my rentals) Anyone else feel like that?

Oh Darn, Seaweed in the Kitchen

I've posted before about darning socks here and mending things, but I haven't mentioned that it is actually therapeutic (for me anyway). There is something positive about making something broken whole and usable again. 
Sitting by the fire this week, I wanted to mend socks, but my darning egg, which was my great grandmother's, was over in the studio - a short walk in the rain. 

Pokerworked by my mother on the inside it reads "Belonged to Sarah Bell 1848 - 1942 

Instead I reached for this emu egg which did the job perfectly. Some people use a lightbulb, but even a bottle will work, as a darning egg.

Seaweed
This week in the post I received a parcel, which had newspaper packing. In it was an article about foraging for, and using seaweed for cooking.
It so happened that our beach was awash with seaweed this weekend so I chose a piece that had no dog footprints around it and gave it a good wash in the tide. Apparently all seaweed in New Zealand is edible and can be used fresh or dried. It is packed with vitamins and minerals, specifically sodium balanced with magnesium.
The seaweed can be used fresh thinly sliced or ground to a powder after drying in soups, stews or stirfry. Or dried pieces can be soaked and added to meals.
I ate a piece raw, and it was ok, but a little tough. Derek wasn't impressed with his piece, so I'm thinking it might need to be powdered here.

I've hung my bunch in the covered outdoor area, which gets breeze and sunshine. An interesting experiment. 
Another two huge bags full have gone around our fruit trees.

Mend It Monday

Last week I had my first day running SewGood Whangarei - the community sewing space that is getting started again after having a year off.
We have a free room to use, and loads of donated sewing machines, material, zips, threads, patterns, fasteners - in fact everything we need for people to walk in and get sewing.

Some of the donated goods free to use at SewGood

One lady came along to check it out, with a pair of her son's shorts to mend as her own machine was no longer working. She said "I know this sounds silly, but I'm really proud of that" with what she had done when it was finished. She will be back next time with a bigger pile of mending.
Do people who throw stuff out when it breaks or becomes less than perfect, realize the sense of achievement of mending things? I think not.
So here are a few of my little projects today on - Mend It Monday.

My leather wallet had seen better days, as a result of overloading it with too much coinage most likely.
I have restitched it on the sewing machine and given it a clean up with some bees wax leather conditioner that I use on my boots.

Before and after - wallet mend, clean and condition

It's still not perfect - but it will last a bit longer, and hopefully the kids won't keep saying "You need a new wallet'

This dear little brooch that I had been given had a broken pin on the back, so I have added another one that I had among my supplies, using that wonderful E6000 glue. Done.

An old pair of jeans that really, I did consider throwing out as I have so many home clothes. But then I thought, no, I'll just mend them. Most people reading my blog will know how to mend jeans, and I'm sure there are more ways than one. I found a piece of similar coloured material, which I pinned and sewed on the inside, then zigzagged all over the split part. I then turned it back inside out, trimmed away the excess material and zigzagged over the edges.

I love how the look of something mended has become trendy.

So are you are mender? Have you had a great success lately?