My life seems to be nicely balanced at the moment. I have days at home when I cook, garden, write, sew, knit and relax and just when I feel the need to talk to outsiders again, Monday comes around and I have a few days at work. Then, I satisfy the need to connect with others, I contribute to my community, I feel useful and that the time time spent away from my home life has been meaningful and valuable. And just as my cup starts to overflow and I need a break from that ...

I come home to this ...

There is so much one could write concerning water conservation. Everyone uses water. We all need it to survive and yet it's one of those things that we don't take a lot of notice of until we have to. As you know, we harvest and store as much water as we can on our property. It is used outside on the animals, chickens and garden. Inside, we use our town water supply but we are extremely frugal with every drop. Water is easy to use and waste. I found this list that shows just how much common household activities use. That is a lot of water running down the drain.

There is another list of water usage here. There are level 5 water restriction in our capital city of Brisbane. People are required to use less than 140 litres per person. We use much less than that and we have found it quite easy to do it.

I think there are three ways you can go on this:

1. If you don't have a garden and only use water indoors, then the obvious thing to do is to work out a good way to cut down on your water usage inside your home.
2. Like us, you could harvest your rainwater, store it in tanks and use it for all your outdoor needs and team this with a water conservation program inside.
3. You could harvest rainwater and have your tank water plumbed into your home to flush toilets, or if you have enough water, for all your indoor needs. You would probably also team this with frugal water usage.

You can monitor how much water you use by learning how to read your water meter. If you're in Australia you can learn how here and here. There is information here and here for my USA friends, and here and here for my UK friends.

If you are living in an area with high air pollution or there are a lot of birds or wildlife that can get on your roof, you may be able to install a first flush diverter that will run-off the first flush of water from your roof, then divert the flow after that to your tank. This will help you with water purity if you intend to drink the water you harvest. Here is a guide to maintaining a healthy water tank.

General maintenance requires that you check for leaks and make sure your mosquito screens are in place and not blocked with leaves or other debris. You'll also need to keep your roof guttering clear of debris. If you own a plastic tank, every few years, whenever your tank is empty, or close to it, you should tip the tank over, hose it out and reconnect it. There is information about desludging and cleaning your tank here.

Size of various types of Australian water tanks are here, check the Slimline and Transport types too. The links are on the right. Mrs T, although these might not be available in Israel, it will give you and Mr T an idea of what is in common use here. There are space saving water tanks here.

How can I make sure that my water is safe to drink? from here.

• Collect and store your water so that contamination from human, chemical or animal sources is minimised. If possible, store drinking water in an above ground tank rather than in an underground tank.
• Ensure that surface runoff, channel water, irrigation water, leakage from sewer pipes, sullage drainage or shallow underground seepage cannot enter your drinking water supply.
• Make sure that any deep bore used as a source of drinking water is properly encased, with an above ground wellhead. A deep bore should ideally be located at least 250 metres away from any sources of pollution likely to affect groundwater quality.
• Do not collect water for drinking from recently painted roofs, timber roofs preserved with chemicals, roofs coated with lead-based paints or tar-based coatings, or parts of roofs near flues from solid wood heaters. Most other roof types will normally be safe for water collection, provided they are kept clean.
• Regularly clean your roof and gutter to remove leaves, animal or bird remains, dust and other debris. Install simple screens between your roof and the water tank.
• The first rainfall after a dry period usually collects most of the contaminants on your roof.
• Installing a ‘first flush’ or other diversion system will prevent this water from entering your water tank. This ‘first flush’ water can be stored separately and used for yard washing, garden watering or fire fighting.
• If your house is in an agricultural area where there is a risk of being oversprayed by aerial chemical spraying, divert the collection pipe from your rainwater tank to prevent any pesticides from entering the tank. Clean the roof or wait until after the next rainfall before reconnecting your drinking water tank to your roof.
• Maintain screens on the inlet and overflow openings of your water tank so that insects, small animals, birds and sunlight can not enter (this will also help to minimise the growth of algae).
• Regularly maintain your water tank and clean out accumulated sludge from the floor.
• Ensure that your domestic drinking water plumbing is completely separate from all other plumbing or pipe systems on your property. Use approved safe plumbing materials and ensure that all pipe joints are properly sealed.
• Disinfect your water supply to kill any harmful microorganisms.

If you live in a bushfire zone, you'll need to give your tank some care after each fire. There is information about that here.

You should cover your water tank as algae will grow in water that is allowed to sit in the sun. All openings should be protected from mosquitoes with fine screening.

How many of you are monitoring your water usage now? Can you read your meter? Although water meters are on most Australian homes I am aware that this is not the case in all homes. Do you have access to your meter? This is an important part of every simple life and I'd be very interested knowing how you intend cutting back your water usage.

A good way to deal with the problem of garbage is to reduce the amount of packaging you bring into your home. I won't buy anything that is over packaged now, and I try to find someone in the store to explain that I want the product but won't buy it because it's over packaged. The more people who do this the better, otherwise manufacturers don't know. I won't buy little packets of anything that are packaged in a bigger pack; I try to buy large containers to decant into smaller ones at home and long ago I gave up on those packs of biscuits (cookies) and chocolates that are individually wrapped, placed in a plastic tray, in a box, covered with cellophane. pfffffffft! My general strategy on packaging is to buy in bulk when I can, buy products stored in paper, cans or glass. If it's in plastic I always check what type of plastic it is and if it's recyclable in my area, I buy it.


Save old bottles and jars for your preserves and cordials. If you buy a larger pack of something like coffee or tea, use your old clean jars to store the product when it's opened.

Not every local area recycles every type of plastic. You need to check your own shire council or local authority to know what it is they recycle. If you're in Australia, click here to check your nearest recycle station. If you click here, you will see what types of paper, cardboard and plastic my local rubbish dump accepts. You should do a Google search for your own recycle station and rubbish dump. There you will find out exactly what they accept and you can monitor your shopping to buy only that type of packaging.

A great side benefits of making compost, keeping chickens and dogs and having a worm farm is that most food scraps and vegetable waste is used to feed them. All our garden waste is given to either the chooks, the worms or the compost. Food scraps go to the dogs, worms or chooks. Our paper products and plastics are recycled - we have a special bin supplied by our council that is collected every second week. Our recycle station also accepts old computers, mobile phones, printers etc and they have information of their website about how to correctly dispose of oil and batteries.


As you can see, we don't have a lot of rubbish and what we do have is dry waste so it goes straight into the bin, without a liner. If I have a lot of smaller items, I wrap them in newspaper and put them in the bin. You could do this with your moist waste if it's not too wet and you use a few sheets of paper. So that is the short answer to the question of plastic bin liners - you can either line the bin with newspaper, or wrap the waste in newspaper parcels.

But the overall answer is to reduce your waste. This is one of the important things you will do in your simple life and it's vital you work out your own strategy for dealing with your household waste. Start by checking out your local area websites so you know what they recycle, then look at your own garbage and work out what you are throwing out. Then make a plan to reduce, reuse and recycle. Everyone's plan will be different but this is an area that we can all share what works for us in the comments section. Please let us know what you do, because I am always looking to improve what I do and I am sure there are many others who are working on this same problem.

"Hmmm, I wonder if there's anything to eat in there."

Currently we have two tanks that hold 15,000 litres (about 4000 gallons). These tanks are used to water the garden and for fresh water for the animals and chooks. I also use this water for soap making and washing vegetables before they come into the house. Sometimes I drink this tank water, untreated. There are health warnings in Australia that say not to drink tank water but I know people who have lived on untreated tank water all their lives and in their 90th year they are still walking around, the picture of good health. I doubt I'd drink untreated tank water if I lived in a city though. My home is on the edge of a huge pine forest, in a semi-rural area, and there is little air pollution here.

I get the impression sometimes that a few of my friends here think I'm a bit of a saint, and that I selflessly work from daylight to dusk to provide my family with their needs. While there is an element of truth in that statement, there are times when all I want to do is nothing.

And that is what I did do on Saturday.

It was a cold and gloomy day and I started off replying to a few emails but there were so many I gave up and organised my desk instead. That didn't feel right either so I looked around for something to do - it was still dark and I wanted to work in silence - I found my knitting. It was then I decided that it was time for a day off.

I made porridge for breakfast, I made bread and soup for dinner, I made the bed, but that was all I did. The rest of the day I swanned around taking photos, reading, knitting and napping. I am better for it. I feel refreshed and ready for everything now. It is surprising just how good a day of nothing feels.

That is Rosie on the left. She is watching Rosetta who has decided that she much prefers the company of dogs and humans to that of her sisters. She's a funny chook and Hanno spoils her by carrying her around and letting her sit INSIDE the grain bin. Yes, inside the bin. She scratches around in there picking out pieces of choice grain and when she has her fill, she flies out and wanders around with Alice and Rosie.

Hanno did his own cooking on Saturday. It was his kale and pork day and he made up a big pot of it, enough for about five meals. It slotted in perfectly with my workless day. Here he is on the back verandah with Alice. Hettie, our cat, is asleep behind him on the green bench.

He is inspecting each leaf of kale for bugs. He then strips the green off the stalk and places it in another bucket. When the whole lot is done, he takes it inside for washing, chopping and cooking.

Like many men, Hanno has his meal favourites and kale and pork is the food he loves most in Winter. It reminds him of living in Germany, and his mum, and I think the smell of it cooking during the day and the memories that invokes is as much a part of the experience as sitting down to eat is.

It's a good experience for me too. I love to see the process of vegetables being harvested, prepared fresh and made into good healthy food for the table. It's not so much the single elements of gardening and how we live that I enjoy, it's the connection of all those elements that make it into something more - that is what gives me pleasure and satisfaction. Of course it's a wonderful thing to see vegetables growing in a garden but when you see those vegetables used for their purpose, when they are harvested and cooked to provide nutrition; that connection of elements is what is significant. The completed circle, combining our skills with what we are able to produce in the backyard, that is what makes my life a joy. That, and knowing we can do it.

We have recently spread our food production from the backyard to the front. We have been growing two avocado trees in the front garden, and have at times grown tomatoes there, but now we've moved up a notch and have planted potatoes along the front drive. You can see them in this photo as they've just started to show their green tops in the straw mulch.

We are lucky to have the amount of land we have. It's not huge by any stretch of the imagination, we have an acre, but it is certainly enough to provide us with the food we need. We are also blessed with the amount of rainfall we get. If we are prudent, we can harvest enough water from our roof to enable us to continue growing food, and to provide enough fresh water for ourselves, the chooks and animals. Being self sufficient in one of the things we must have is very empowering.

I wonder though if, with climate change, that will remain as it is. Australia is in the midst of the worst drought in our history and we are reminded of that fact every day as our state government is currently building a huge pipeline to carry water from our local dams into our capital city, about 100 kms south. That pipeline is being built quite close to our home and although we can't see the work being carried out, we can hear trucks working every day. It's a powerful reminder that we are all responsible for the harvesting and storage of water on our own properties and that when we have more than enough, and even when we don't, we share what we have.

I hope you have a wonderful week. I am moving into this week with a feeling of optimism and joy. I hope you feel something similar in your own life and that we all look back on this week as a good one.

Dana over at Old Red Barn is having a giveaway. The prize is a quilt! There are no photos yet but the photos of her first quilt giveaway are fabulous. You can read all about it here on Dana's blog. It is wonderful to see such generous giveways. Thank you Dana.

There was a real nip in the air when I got out of bed yesterday. It was only 5 C (41 F) and when the sun came up the sky was bright blue, with not a cloud to be seen. It was windy and cold all day, the perfect day to stay indoors and knit, but, like most days, there was work to be done. We had hot porridge for breakfast, and as usual, I made enough for Hanno and I, the dogs and the chooks. It's a treat the chickens look forward to on these cold mornings and it fills their little bellies up with warm carbohydrates to keep them clucking and scratching happily all morning.

With breakfast over, I tidied up the kitchen, made the bed and cleaned the bathroom. I am using my soap and old terry towelling rags for most of the wet kitchen cleaning nowadays. That soap really cuts through food spills and any grease on the stove, then it's just a quick wipe with a clean damp rag, and a polish with a dry one, and it's nice and clean again. With the kitchen clean, I set to making the bread. Yesterday's loaf was a wholemeal and rye mix with oats and sesame seeds on the top. I vacuumed the house - I do this about once a week or so, I sweep on other days. After the vacuuming, I washed the floors using hot water with a splash of my liquid soap and vinegar.

I spent an hour in the garden while the floors dried. Hanno was out there erecting some posts for a lattice screen we will have outside our bedroom windows. We'll grow food vines, like loofahs, cucumbers and beans, there in the summer to shade that wall from the western sun ,and leave it open in winter to let the sun in. We had a cuppa on the back porch and then I went to talk to the chooks and inspect the vegetable garden. The cucumbers are ready to come out, the kale is really high - Hanno will pick it today for his kale and meat fest, the snow peas are starting to produce little sweet pods and there are some beans hanging like temptresses in the breeze. I planted lazy housewife beans this year, they're very similar to the blue lakes, but I keep eating them fresh from the vines so we don't have enough for eating with our meals. ;- ) I pulled out a few plants, picked a cauliflower, baby silverbeet leaves and some herbs and came back inside to bake the bread for lunch.


After lunch I finished off my Warm Earth article and emailed it in, went in and looked at Shane's quilt and decided to knit instead. I bundled myself in my rosebud quilt and knitted while I watched Time Team. This week they were looking for an Anglo-Saxon palace, but didn't find it. To all the others out there who watch this wonderful program, I like Phil the best. And yes, he is very much like Worzel Gummidge (another favourite of mine). After my break I tidied the front verandah, pruned back the camellias and wrote emails.

There have been times in my life when I didn't think about happiness. Those were the days when I didn't feel happy at all and I didn't know it was possible to actively seek it out. Two things have changed now. Now I live with happiness every day and although I know it is possible to find happiness, my happiness now finds me. To many people, that day spent in my home yesterday, working alongside my husband, doing the chores that provide our needs, would seem banal and tiresome. To me though it is a joy to be here. Our work provides us with the life we wish for ourselves. It isn't hard work by any means but it is life affirming and enriching, and when we go to bed each night there is satisfaction knowing that we made our own lives that day and tomorrow we will willingly get up and do again.

I met Hanno on my 28th birthday, we married when I was 31 and our first baby, Shane, was born a year later. Shane turns 28 next Tuesday. He has never brought any of his girlfriends home to meet us but a couple of weeks ago, we met his girl. She admired my dishcloth knitting that was beside my chair, she's fond of vegetable gardening and chooks and she's a really lovely girl. Next week she's leaving her job and part time university to move in with Shane. They will both work at the resort and live in a house on the property. There isn't a smiley face big enough to insert here so let's just say I'm a very happy mother.

That hasn't got much to do with today's post, I just had to tell my good news. We'll be driving over there to have lunch with them next week. I'll try to slip in this subject.

The Story of Stuff

If I was setting up a home today with the same sensibilities and knowledge I have in my head now, I'd reject much of the new made in China products and go for either second hand, hand made or good quality items that would last many years and be repaired when needed. I wish I could say I did that the first time around, or even the second, but you know my story and I was caught up in the conspicuous wealth syndrome back then and I bought things that looked good. I should have known better because I am a working class woman and I feel ashamed that I fell for the advertising hook, line and sinker.

I'm glad I changed.


One of my grandmothers was Swedish, so buried deep in my genes is a love of the Swedish style of painted furniture. This style of decorating a home relies on plain and simple old wooden furniture that is painted in beautiful tones of milky blue or green with bright splashes of red. Much of this furniture could be picked up on road side throw outs, bought at garage sales or in op shops, and repainted. Often chairs and couches are covered with homemade cotton covers that have been sewn to fit the shape. Not only is this a very frugal way of furnishing a home, it's also environmentally sound and it cuts out the Chinese middleman.


When it comes to appliances, I think it's better to buy new energy efficient, good quality items that are built to last and can be repaired. Curtains and soft furnishings can be home made and bit by bit you build your new home into something unique, and not the carbon copy of a thousand other houses nearby. When I look around my home now, I love my red and white curtains the most - they were made for me in my own home by my sister, Tricia. I like and value the curtains I hand made in my kitchen much more than the custom made ones I have in the loungeroom. Those kitchen curtains are "me", they symbolise my life now, the others are just a reflection of the money I used to earn. pffffffffffft!


The same applies to clothes. I used to buy all my clothes, now I make as much of it as I can. I still buy some things, but I plan on teaching myself how to make everything I need in the coming years. I really dislike all the cheap clothes that flood in from China. It's a false economy to think it's a bargain when what it is doing is harming our own manufacturing industries, and giving us more of everything, when what we need is less. I would like to see the manufacturers in Australia regain the strength they had in former years, when they produced good quality local products and even though they were more expensive, they lasted and built our local economy. We had less waste then because we didn't have the option to go to a department store and buy a cheap replacement that we would need to replace again a couple of years down the track.

I think the current economic climate will require more prudent consumption of almost everything, and that is a good thing. It's wiser now to pay off debt than to take it on. That is what I'll try to slip into our birthday conversation with Shane. It won't be a lecture, it will be gentle and linked to lifestyle instead of economics, but the result, I hope will be the same. When they embark on a new life together, I hope they won't fall for the McMansion-I have to have everything I want syndrome, and instead be mindful of a future with less debt and less waste.

Graphics from the Carl Larsen gallery.

It's confession time! There are days, like today, when I get up in the morning and can't be bothered writing. I feel overwhelmed sometimes, not with the writing, but with the knowledge that there are so many people looking into my life. Most of the time that's okay, some days it isn't.

Christine, I don't know if I would like Sex in the City or not, I haven't seen it, only the promotions. I doubt I'd like it though. I'd rather go and have afternoon tea with your mum. ;- )

Fifi, I just loved your comment. Happy birthday for yesterday! You really have got it. I watched the very end of the tennis - it's finished here at about 5.30am and it was really exciting.

Silversewer, it's good to know your OH is slowly recovering. Take care of yourself as well.

Jenny, my work makes me more thankful for Hanno and my boys too.

Terry, I don't see myself as vegetarian. We eat fish, we have a leather couch and wear leather shoes and Hanno eats meat sometimes. We do eat mainly grains, fruit and vegetables though. If you're thinking of moving to a meat free diet, I'd encourage you to buy a good recipe book that helps you understand what complete protein is - or essential amino acids. Meat is complete protein, vegetables are not, although there is protein in vegetables and fruit. Fruit and vegetables are incomplete protein, you need to combine your foods. For instance, baked beans on wholemeal toast in complete protein and a good example of combining one food with another to get what you require. I have this book, it's been a really good guide for me and it has some great recipes.

Katie, I love long comments. Your comment made me smile and was just what I needed this morning. It's okay if you don't agree with some of my reasons for change - we all come to it from different places. The important thing is that you're moving towards a a gentler life. I send my best wishes to you both and hope you find some posts here that will help you on your journey.

Amanda, it's small steps all the way, love. That's what I did and it worked well. Slowing down, organising your life and recognising your own happiness is a big part of this way of living. I think the most difficult part is the first step and I think you may have taken that. :- )

This is my low fat version of tuna bake. It's like a meat loaf only it's tuna, and very tasty.

TUNA LOAF
Large tin tuna
Vegetables - onions, spinach, celery, parsley
2 eggs
1 cup breadcrumbs
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon paprika OR curry powder

Hanno and I spent a peaceful weekend together working away on our various chores and watching a couple of TV shows that I recorded through the week. I really have no patience with TV now and find it difficult to watch unless I can fast forward through the advertising. I have to admit too that I find it difficult to understand sometimes. I have never watched the popular programs like Sex in the City or Lost and I find that if I come across them in a promotion, I wonder what on earth they're talking about. Maybe that's my age playing a part or maybe it's a cultural thing because sometimes I do have problems understanding an American accent, especially if it's being spoken fast, as a lot of what I hear is. I mean no offence to any of my American friends. I find I can always understand the southerners, is that because they speak slower?

Anyhow, my favourite programs at the moment are the ABC's The Cook and the Chef and the Book Show, and Time Team, that strangely addictive English program about digging up the ancient past. So my love and I settled in together to watch those programs as the rain fell on the roof, and there under the fleecy rosebud quilt he gave me for my birthday, and with our hot cuppas and just cooked banana and walnut cake, we enjoyed a couple of hours away from the wet coldness outside. I finished off one dishcloth and started on another and Hanno flicked through the Weekend Australian as we watched.


As usual, there was hot bread for lunch, mine with brandywine tomato and fresh cucumber, Hanno's with quark and avocado. You can see Saturday's loaf above, I was just finishing off the rolling out of it when my sister Tricia rang from Sydney to say goodbye. She left for a holiday in Germany and Sweden yesterday so we talked about her plans while I fumbled the dough into the bread tin and placed it in the oven. When the bread was baked there was that big bump coming out the side that you can see in the photo above. Very odd.

And here are the brandywines and cucumbers just after they were harvested. I brought in about 5 kilos (10.5 lbs) of them as well as six cucumbers and a cauliflower.

I have been feeling pretty lazy lately as I haven't done anything about my book, even after all those wonderful comments you all made when I wrote about it a couple of weeks ago. I thought by now I would have sent off a couple of letters, with examples of my work, to some publishers, but no, it's still undone. Hopefully I'll get to it soon. When I do I'll let you know.

Today I'm back at my voluntary job with all the hard work, organisation and effort that takes. I adore my job, it gives me much more than it takes, and I think it keeps me on my toes. I work with a lot of young people there, as well as families and the aged, so it keeps me grounded and well informed. We are in the process of building a new building to house our Centre so there is a lot of work going on with that - meetings, phones calls, letters etc., but there are also the day to day things, like lighting the fire in the morning and providing hot tea and hospitality to our visitors, that give me a lot of joy. I am the manager of the Centre so there is a lot of responsibility that goes with the job but it is a part of my life that I embrace as life affirming and significant. We look after the homeless and disadvantaged and as many of our clients are the same age as my own sons, I try to create an atmosphere of acceptance and love that I would like my boys to find if ever they needed this kind of help. I am ever thankful they don't and I show my appreciation for that by helping provide it for others.

I hope you have a wonderful week full of satisfying work and some quiet time to balance it and regenerate you. To all the new visitors, and I'm always surprised how many of you arrive each week, I welcome you and hope you find what you're looking for here.