The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the next best time is now.  - Chinese Proverb

I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do - Willa Cather (1873 -1947)

       Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience.  Knowing grass, I understand the meaning of persistence.  – Hal Borland

Trees are poems that earth writes on the sky

We fell them down and turn them into paper

That we may record our emptiness

Kahlil Gibran

Because they are primeval, because they outlive us, because they are fixed, trees seem to

emanate a sense of permanence. And though rooted in earth, they seem to touch the sky.

For these reasons it is natural to feel we might learn wisdom from them, to haunt about

them with the idea that if we could only read their silent riddle rightly we should learn

some secret vital to our own lives; or even, more specifically, some secret vital to

our real, our lasting and spiritual existence.

- Kim Taplin, Tongues in Trees

Ok, tree-hugging moment over.  Do you have any tree words you’d like to share?  I’d love to hear them.  Stick them in the comment box below. 

I’ve introduced a new category called Power Down.  It’s not strictly about renewable energy, although elbow grease, which I imagine is going to feature quite a bit in this category is pretty much that.   It is about being less reliant on mod-cons,  for which most of us rely upon people cleverer than ourselves to invent and design.  It usually means we also need experts to fix them when they go wrong, or worse we chuck them out and buy a new one. This is about simple technologies that all of us can employ.  So where would we be without fridges?

Before we got our inverter it was impossible to run a fridge all the time at our house.  Even now, with the inverter, we can only run a small fridge and certainly not a freezer.  (And we empty and turn that off when we go away!)  We did have fridge-freezer that ran on gas in the generator room which we used from time to time, but mostly it was inefficient, expensive and getting gas up here was a pain.  It has now conked out and is just a cupboard!

We managed quite well without a fridge to be honest.  Most of the year it is cold enough just to leave food outside or in even in the coldest part of the house. (Which was originally a pantry and was what most people managed with prior to the advent of the fridge!)  We only bought fresh food as we needed it – doing a large shop and stuffing your fridge full can be a recipe for waste – and remember that  fridges don’t work efficiently when they are over full.  We also came to the conclusion that a lot of what people keep in fridges is to some degree already a preserved version of a foodstuff; cheese,  bacon, any other cured meats, smoked or salted fish and there even seems to be a trend towards keeping jams, pickles and ketchups in the fridge.  Is that really necessary?

I think preserving is a very worthy way of ensuring we can enjoy our harvests during the winter months, jams and chutneys are fun to make and good to eat.  You might lose vitamin C but many other anti-oxidants, especially from berries, are concentrated in this way and will still be doing you lots of good.  Building vegetable clamps is another way of increasing the life of your harvest, they are suitable for most root crops aswell harder fruits such as apples and pears.  The basic idea is you choose a dry, free-draining spot and dig a trench around it for further drainage.  The excavated soil will be used to cover your clamp over.  Make a layer of straw, dried bracken, reeds - whatever is local to you – then lay on your first layer of crops.  Build it up in layers in this way.  Finish with a final layer of your insulating material and then cover over with the earth.  For more detailed instructions on clamp building visit here at Self-Sufficientish, always one of my favourite places! 

This is all fine if you happen to live in a cool climate but what about when things hot up?  How about making your own earthen-ware cool storage system?  I came across this idea at Practical Action, a charity that seeks to enable people to use local resources and simple technologies throughout the developing world. Go and visit, it’s a site full of brilliant ideas.  This particular idea is called a Zeer Pot and was developed using local clay in the Sudan.  The basic principle is that you take a large pot and a smaller pot that will fit inside that, this is the food storage area.  You fill the gap inbetween the pots with wet sand.  The water in the sand evaporates outwards towards the outer surface of the larger pot causing a cooling effect of several degrees in the centre.  The pots should be covered with a damp cloth and placed in a shady place where air can circulate around them, I’m going to rest mine on wooden pallets because we have those, but the original article suggests making iron stands.  The cloth and sand needs re-wetting every couple of days.  This method of storage can increase the life of tomatoes from two days to twenty days, or salad from one day to five days.  That’s about as good as a fridge I’d say!

‘How to build a shed?’ I echo.  This is random.  I didn’t think we needed a shed, a green house maybe, but a shed?   I certainly didn’t think we needed to know how to build a shed.  You see we have outbuildings.  Outbuildings that passers-by in Summer tell us they would be quite happy to live in.  And yet all of a sudden the generator room, as we call this collection of buildings, is not big enough for all our junk.  

Apparently my gardening equipment is a problem.  This could turn into a domestic bicker of  large proportions.  ‘My gardening stuff?’ I ask incredulously.  It barely takes up a fraction of the heavy industrial gear in there.  As it is I have to climb over a bank of battery chargers to get to my fork. 

But the bicker stops there as I think about this.  A shed.  Just for my gardening stuff?  No battery chargers to climb over?  This could be good, I could create my own shed heaven.  A little potting bench.  Portable radio.  Window looking out over the buddleias and butterflies.  Tools hanging neatly from the wall.  An old chair with a much loved and worn cushion on it.

I smile at The Man from Salford.  ‘I think what you do is take your credit card to a DIY store and they give you a shed.  Flatpack.  Just knock it together! Easy, that’s how you build a shed.’  Apparently this is very un-green and consummerist of me.  An accusation that appears frequently in our bickers.  I don’t like to point out he hasn’t even constructed the owl box he’s been meaning to make since the beginning of Winter.  (Admitedly he’s been busy with the water system.)  The Man from Salford is right, we do need to know how to build things for ourselves and be more self-reliant.  And while building a shed seems like a big undertaking to me, I am keen and warming to the idea the more I think about it. 

The Man from Salford is already busy researching the net in search of useful info on shed building.  I look doubtfully over his shoulder and make useful comments.  But that’s American I tell him as he peruses yet another promise of shed perfection, but he is not perturbed.  Apparently American centimetres are the same as English ones.  For the record I have great trouble cooking in American, the only thing I measure in cups is bra size.    I’m going to put it here he says……..

Ok and when is he going to build a garage to store the cement mixer and scaffolding?  I’m watching this space. 

So, what is your idea of perfect shed heaven?

And why the 3rd of March?  Does this commemorate the birth/death/other of a famous mathematician?  I’m appalled to admit I can’t think of a single famous mathematician off the top of my head.  (Feel free to help me out here!)  Is it the day on which many people (like me now I’ve just realised my watch thinks it’s the 31st February) figure out they are going to have to wind their watches on for 72 hours before the date reads right? 

Maybe the 3rd March is the only day left that hasn’t been carved out of the calendar by some other deserving cause.  I’m afraid I am beginning to suffer from world day fatigue.  I am unlikely to ever remember the date of any one of them.  Anyway, I can’t let this special day go uncommemorated and thought that the most fitting thing for this blog was a reminder of the 350 cause.

390ppm = current concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

350ppm = the safe upper limit of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Now do the maths as they say, or just visit www.350.org.  And Happy World Maths Day to you!

I want to get this out of the way before Spring arrives.  Obviously I don’t want to be clearing it once birds have decided it would make a good nesting spot.  Given  the number of spent nests I found it clearly is a desirable location.  Also I don’t want to give any of those bramble suckers a chance to make contact with the soil and root anew.  Some of them were over twenty-five foot long!  I had some fun whizzing them around my head like a lasso, they make a very satisfying whirring noise!

There’s going to have to be a fire I think.  Again we’re going to have to be wildlife savvy and check  that the heap that’s steadily piled up since last Autumn isn’t harbouring any hibernating hedgehogs.   Once I’ve chopped the plants back enough to see where they are sprouting some serious digging out is going to have to be done.  Followed by yet another fire to rid us of the evil roots!

It’s not the most fun you can have in a garden, and I was covered in thousands of tiny scratches by the time the day was out, but the whole time I sustained myself with daydreams of what might replace this brambly thicket.  The ground here might possibly be even enough and light enough for a polytunnel, now that’s exciting and will extend our growing opportunities no end.

The veg patch is looking a bit sad.  The sprouts, cabbages and remaining leeks  all look slightly poorly  after such a prolonged spell under freezing snow.  What did still look surprisingly good was the pak choi.  This is definitely on my list for sowing again this year.  Even now it just looks fresh and vibrantly green.  It tastes good raw or cooked and appears to survive anything the weather can throw at it – despite its delicate appearance it’s one hardy plant.

I sowed the pak choi straight into the soil and it had a very good germination rate.  I had to force myself to do a fair bit of thinning out.  We were surprisingly untroubled by slugs and snails last summer, but the pak choi I’m afraid was a slug magnet.  I laid beer traps.  These do work, but you have to make sure to cover them over with crocks to encourage the  slugs in.  The Man from Salford however has pointed out to me that the calories in the beer far outweigh the calories from the entire pak choi crop and that this surely is not sustainable practice?  Mmmmm!  Does he have a point or does he not want to share his beer?

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For the Fair Trade Fortnight I’ve chosen to write about fair trade textiles as it still seems to be the Cinderella of the fair trade movement.  I did a quick (if not comprehensive!) survey of my friends, they all conscientiously buy fair trade sugar, bananas and tea, but none of them buy fair trade clothes.   Fair trade tea and coffee has become ubiquitous, not a bad thing of course, we can pick it up easily at any supermarket as well as the more traditional fair trade outlets.  Now that Cadbury has made the switch to Fair Trade I imagine most of the chocolate consumed in this country is fair trade also.  Fair trade really has come a long way and it has a lot to celebrate this fortnight.  But where do you get hold of fair trade textiles and clothes?  This is not a classic Cinders tale of rags to riches, but of organic cotton to fair trade. 

Fair trade textiles and clothing are not  obvious on the high street .  You may occasionally come across organic cotton products, priced to put people off,  but that’s about it.  Inorganic cotton production is a dirty, resource-hungry business and does very little for the poorest people in the world who farm it.  But there are textile designers and manufacturers out there doing stirling work to change this around.

Abi and Thomas Petit, founders of Gossypium,  pioneered ethical textiles in the UK as far back as the late nineties.  They have a deep commitment to the Agrocel organic farming project in Kutch – Western India.  The small scale family farms here benefit from their close ties with Gossypium in a partnership that reduces the risk of market shocks for both as they work outside the commodities market and directly with each other.  The hands on approach ensures transparency at all levels of production, nobody can be accused of not knowing how the organic cotton is produced or  be unaware of the conditions for those producing it.  You can see Abi here talking about the history of cotton production and exploitation and their unique approach to marketing fair trade textiles.

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One of the things I like most about Gossypium is that while they do undoubtedly make beautiful clothes that are made to last, what really marks them out amongst other fair trade textile producers is their willingness to encourage people to make their own clothes.  We have lost many of our traditional skills that would make us more self-reliant and less dependent on mindless consummerism.  Gossypium is a good place to start.  Their really funky apron dress kits  (top right) are just inspiring and at £25 they are affordable.  I also love their tea towel kits aimed at getting kids sewing.  Oh, and if you lose any buttons they’ll happily and swiftly send you spares, unusually in the world of fashion they want their products to last.

Of course, I have made a resolution not to buy any new clothes this year with the exception of underwear.  If your underwear drawer is beginning to take on that grey over-washed look don’t forget to check out the Gossypium Pants to Poverty brightly coloured range of underwear for men and women. 

Now I don’t know if making my own new clothes counts, what do you think? 

Now I’ve caught up with myself  I can settle back to blogging almost in time for Sustainable Living Project’s first birthday.  (It was Monday I think!)  To celebrate I’ve made an archive for my witterings and also I’ve added an extra page with some of my favourite photos. 

This time last year I could just about send an email, it was quite a learning curve setting this up – vertical in fact.  The best thing about blogging is that it has made us get on with things.  I loved getting better at using my camera, though shamefully still haven’t read the instructions.  We made progress with the slope and it was fantastic to eat my own sprouts and parsnips at Christmas.  We’ve met new people through our project, both on and off line.  The guys who turned up in canoes at our 350 off-road soup day inspired us to get hold of a canoe of our own - it had its first maiden voyage with all three of us this weekend and it’s going to be such fun.

Things don’t always work out the way you think they are going to.  During the summer I was visiting Granny Goo and was unable to write a post about what was going on here so instead chose to write a generic filler about how I use bicarbonate of soda to clean.  I didn’t think too carefully about it, I just bashed it out.  We were going to try and film Goldilocks’ volcano exploding but all you could see was shadows and me and Granny Goo could be heard yelling at each other to get out of the light!  All you got was a picture of the volcano in the end.  The funny thing was that the brain of Google, which moves in mysterious ways, decided that the whole world should be able to share my wisdom in cleaning with bicarbonate of soda.  That post gets way more traffic than any other!

While I’ve been busy doing my ‘water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink’ thing my spam queue has grown quite large.  I’ll delete it in a minute but first of all I’m going to copy the jokes left by the guy trying to sell viagra.  They are perfectly, Christmas cracker corny and I will recycle them into home made crackers next Christmas.  Here’s just a few:

How do you get holy water? Boil the hell out of it.

Why is the letter A like a flower? Because a Bee comes after it!

What do you call a crazy baker? A dough nut.

What did the Scotsman do when he couldn’t find a pair of pants? He kilt himself.

What did one wall say to the other wall? Meet you at the corner.

What do prisoners use to call each other? Cell phones.

Thank you Mr Viagra man, sorry I didn’t include a link!

And finally a pretty picture because it’s the SLP birthday and I can if I want to!  We went on a snowdrop walk this week, aren’t they fantastic? 

Slightly more seriously than that our water supply has been constantly freezing up – making the job of getting on with everyday living slightly harder and slower.  Sorting out our water supply has been on our to do list for some time now but this has really brought the issue sharply into focus.  I’ll get posting on that sometime in the coming year we’ve got lots of exciting ideas and options on the table.

The most disappointing thing over the holiday period was the outcome at Copenhagen.  I don’t think my expectations were unrealistic but nevertheless I can’t help feeling let down.  The window of opportunity for acting against climate change is narrowing.  We’ll be keeping up our personal efforts here to minimize our impact, but I’m also thinking we need to do more in terms of activism this year.  That will be one family resolution, my personal resolution is not to buy any new clothes at all this year.  (Unless our house is burnt down in which case I will buy new undies!)

Hope you like the picture of the hogweed, the freezing temperatures may be a pain but is sure does look beautiful around here right now.

My jeans are the worst offenders.  What’s more the stiffer fabric doesn’t lend itself so well to cleaning chores and so I’ve quite a few pairs slumped in the bottom of the wardrobe.  I wear jeans with holes in the knees quite happily, I should patch them at this stage really. But what generally happens is I wait till they are peeling away from the knees  and a bit beyond my rather shoddy needlework skills.  And like everyone else I’m pretty good at pleading time poverty.

The pile of denim is daring me to chuck it out.  I’ve decided to start patching them afresh into something new to avoid the temptation.   What the new is I’m not exactly sure yet.  I’m not always keen on patchwork, it can look a bit twee.  Still there should be a happy medium somewhere in between Laura Ashley and Tracey Emin.

I’ve decided to do all the stitching by hand.  This isn’t some worthy attempt at powering down.  I have an electric sewing machine it’s just I don’t have a place where it can be left out.  Chunks of time where I could clear a space and put it all away again are at a premium.  It would just never happen.  I do have small patches of time though in which it is feasible to thread a needle wherever I happen to be.  This is as much an exercise in stitching together patches of time as it is patches of fabric.

In nineteenth century New England young women were expected to stitch together (presumably in their spare time) a bakers dozen of quilts as part of their dowries.  The last and thirteenth being the quilt of the marriage bed.  I’ve managed about nine patches in a fortnight, Miss Haversham will get married before me!

I’ve started with some rather rudimentary squares on the grounds it shouldn’t be too complicated even for me.  A couple of The Man from Salford’s tattier shirts have been pressed into use. They have useful checks and lines and make cutting easier although it would be nice if he had a taste for something a little more exotic, purple paisley maybe?   

As denim is prone to fraying I’ve used paper inserts to give me a straight edge.  It was once thought women would stitch in love notes, though  social historians have pointed out only the literate and well-off  would have had access to any useful amount of paper.  Such women didn’t really need to be stitching at all, it was just one of several means to keep them out of trouble.  And where would I be if women hadn’t occasionally caused trouble throughout history? (Married  whether I liked it or not?) 

I am of course recycling paper for this purpose and it will make it’s way to the compost bin once I pull it out of the end product.  I’m slightly ashamed to admit two sheets were an article I’d printed off about deforestation! Will do better!!!!!! 

I’m trying to use every last scrap of the jeans. I’ll use the long strips down the seams for piping.  The rivets make quite pretty decorations, so every so often when I’m bored of plain stitching and squares I’ve made shapes to applique to the less-than-thrilling patches.  I tried using a bit of zip and some buttons to make a happy smiley face but the result seems a little, well vaguely disturbing and sinister.  Let me know if you think zippy should make it to the finished article.  

The cold weather always turns our attention to our less than efficient and somewhat crude plumbing and heating.  We would like to have a water heating solar panel (we would like to have PV panels too) but we are not allowed.  We live in a listed building on a conservation site and even something as inoffensive as a slimline panel on the roof is a no-no apparently.  I’m all for preserving our heritage but I would like it to be presupposed by a need to preserve the planet first.  I think a planet would make heritage sites so much more accessible.  If only there was some way we could bypass all the red tape at the local planning department.  Perhaps we could put in for a nuclear reactor?   

The Gates of Hell are About to Open:

(Mind the gap) is a fabulous book by John Connelly.  We are reading it together aloud as part of our ongoing efforts to find cheap and low-impact family entertainment. It is cheap, it is definitely harmless and generally more funny than it is frightening.  And it is hugely entertaining.  Connelly’s hell is populated by weak, flawed and vulnerable demons.  Their desires and actions are governed, in turn, by avarice and a need to be loved.  They fear their superiors and loathe their inferiors, and some of them are a little power crazy.  Not a whole lot different from us then?  Oh, for something simple, pure and uncomplicated – like a parsnip.