Recycling & Reusing; Kitting out a home

Even before we found our house I’ve been making plans for it and working out how we can kit it out in as greenly, which happily happens to be the cheapest, a way as possible. There wasn’t really very much we needed as we already have things like a bed, wardrobe, draws, desk, etc but there have been a few things we’ve needed and I have made sure all of them, apart from the washing machine, have come secondhand.

The things in our house all have history, and right from when we started moving stuff in it has had a welcoming ‘lived in’ feel to the place.

From the wonder that is Freecycle we have received a sofa-bed, flat screen TV, book cases and shelving, pots and pans, a tailors dummie (not really for the house but I now have plenty of room to use it!) and a greenhouse for the garden.

And from family and friends we have received countless kitcheny things, a drop leaf table and chairs, lamps, coffee and side tables and lots of help with the move itself. There are still some things left to move and find before we are completely finished moving but we are in and have everything that we need day-to-day.

Bonfire night

Today has been a good autumny kind of day, not to windy, mostly bright with only a few bitter cold showers.

The garden, and goat pen, are starting to get very muddy again. A productive afternoon was spent in the garden sorting, the morning disappeared somewhere too but not as productively, I remember looking at the clock and finding at it was already half past one with nothing done.

A pile of sacks of manure was cleared, unfortunately not to the allotment but to some local freecyclers. Even though the allotment needs as much manure as possible on it but it is the time it takes moving it up their and in the next couple of weeks there is the muck heap garden to be taken up there to make way for the new goat housing.

A fire was lit and lots of old branches were sorted, broken up and either burned there and then or put to one side for cutting up for the Rayburn and indoor wood burners. Over the summer a lot of twigy branches have built up from the greens feed to the goats, and now that the garden is gettting muddy they are starting to get walked into everywhere.

Then this evening we went out to see some fireworks. (photo to follow when I get bluetooth working)

Willow

We now have some willow cuttings, courtesy of a local freecycler. They have been in the kitchen rooting for a while now but I’ve finally planted most of them out on the far site of the goat pen to hopefully make that area drier in the long run.

Boxes by the goats

I had a bit of a rubbish day yesterday, for a few reasons my ‘main’ job is not the funnest place to be at the moment, then on the way home (from my second job) I ‘broke-down’, or let the van run out of petrol. Luckly it didn’t happen until I got to the bottom of the hill, but I did have to push the van all by myself back up a little bit of a hill before I could push it of the single-track road then walk up the hill home.

I was pleased with myself though, yes the van was empty but I did push it and get it moving up (a small) hill, and then walk almost a mile home up a very steep hill in complete darkness and all in about 25 – 30 minutes. And I wasn’t too out of breath when I got home or to cross, walking by myself makes me cross, it always has done. I’m fitter than I thought I was!

When I got home mother made me a cup of tea and gave me a box, that had been left by the goat house. My heritage and heirloom seed potatos, yay! There is 180 of them, all different colours, all seasons for all uses. I won’t be growing all of 180, there just isn’t enough space however much I’d like to, I’ve arrange a ‘potato share’ through LETS and the local Frercycle Cafe but I will at least get a few of each kind to try out.

I’ve still waiting for one more varity, a untra-earily call Mimi. They look like little cherry-potatos and are breed for growing in containers or small sizes. I’m planning to grow them in buckets i the polytennel and, if they would just arrive, we could be having home grown spuds for Easter.

Now all that is left to get, is sweetcorn seed, a problem I think ‘ve solved. For months now I’ve been looking for non-F1 sweetcorn seeds, they are THE LAST seeds left to order for this year now. Unless I find something interesting, which of course I won’t be able to live without, but that really isn’t how I should be thinking, I have far to many seeds to be able to grow them all this year and I hate the thought that even a single one of the little seeds I have won’t be given the chance to sprout and grow.

T&M use to sell a varity called ‘Idian Summer’ but they seem to have stopped for some reason, I’ve tried ebay and the other seeds companies I use but haven’t come up with anything, until I remembered The Real Seed Company, I’m been on their website a few time, they have some very useful information on there about things like seed saving but I’ve never bought anything from them.

They have just want I’m after, two different types of non-F1 sweetcorns that will grow well in the UK. perfect! I even have a plan in my head, I just need to sit down and work through it all to add the final touches.

Free Seeds

I started ordering some more seeds for next year today, lots of different colours of carrot. Some red, two different purples, yellow and some orange (mini and giant.)  I’ve tried to order non-F1seeds, the mini and giant are, so as I can have ago at saving some seed from them, and the yellow coloured ones are an heirloom verity. I’m a member of an online survey site, were you fill in questionaires, mostly about shopping, and you collect points which can be exchanged for lots of different things including PayPal credit. 

I’m really pleased with myself, I picked out the seeds I wanted a while ago and have been saving up my points until I had enough for the seeds I wanted. It feels good and I can’t wait until the seeds arrive.

The new T&M catalogue came the other day, I’ve add up how much all the seed potatoes that I want and it’s £50 worth, ouch. There are two heritage/heirloom collection that I want, I want all the different types potatoes but both collection add up to 160 tubers so I have posted a ‘potato share’ in the LETS newsletter and the Freecycle café and have had a fair few responses from people interested. One of them is someone from a community garden who have offered to swap for some of the heritage seeds that they have saved.  

One of the other kinds that I want is a new verity called Mimi. It is a first early and are “unique cherry-sized, red-skinned salad. Huge numbers. Delicious tasting. Dwarf foliage and ideal for growing in containers.”

It started to feel like winter today, it was a nice day and the sun was out but it was cold, and still is. I think there might be a frost tonight. I’ve said for a couple of days running that I think we need to light the wood burner but it really had to be done tonight. Tomorrow I’m off and one of my jobs is going to have to be getting a new chain for the chainsaw. Normally we use a handsaw for cutting up all the wood for the wood burners, it’s always been everyone’s job to saw a box full of wood each day in the winter when we were growing up but this year we’re all almost grown-up, not that I feel at all grown-up, and there just isn’t the time in the day anymore.

We’re getting ready for Apple Day at work, it’s in two weekends time, and today I went out collecting apples (from Freecycle) to put through the press and it was really nice. I wish we had apple trees, the only ‘useful’ tree we have is a sweet chestnut tree. When me and mother went to get Kniteshade on Sunday the motorway was lined with apple trees covered in fruit, all going to waste. My dad has a theory that the reason motorways and railway lines almost always have fruit trees along them is because of people throwing their cores out of the windows.

More freecycle

I was working today but have had quite a busy freecycle day as well.

There was a want post a few days ago for someone who wanted jars for pickling so I arranged that she could have some of the boxes full of jars that I got from LETS a while ago. Not all the jars are suitable for what I want and what goes around comes around doesn’t it? We’d meet a few times, during the winter I often offer sacks of manure on there and I often ask for sacks as well. Work is half way between both of us so we arrange to meet there, she bought me some sacks she’d saved for me and I bought her the jars.

I also asked for a rabbit hutch a few miles from work and got it. It’s a really good hutch and looks like its hardly been used.

Also, yesterday on the way to picking the chicks up me and Mother picked up some soap nuts from Mrs Green, very interesting looking things.

Freecycle is great

Ok, I haven’t really been looking at the things that have been coming up on freecycle lately, but today 6 men’s silk shirts came up. I’ve been thinking of trying patchwork for a while, I’ve even saved and cut up some old jeans that had a big rip in the knee and I thought that they would go well with silk in maybe a custon cover.

As well as the silk shirts some 25kg sacks have come up, which will be great for mucking out the goat houses into.