The Crone has dyed her hair

I finally decided to dye my hair on Saturday. Since I gave up on chemical dyes a couple of years ago, the whites have gotten more and more visible. It was a dilemma for me; to dye or not to dye?

After my coffee morning with the LMS (like minded souls) I came home all inspired and brewed up the batch of henna powder which I bought a few months ago from an Asian grocery store.

You know what, it smells like very very suspicious! It also feels like thick goopey warm baby poop on your scalp! But it works :)

I am now a nice shade of auburn for the exhorbitant amount of $1.25 :)

Meeting some like minded souls today

Cwm Goch, Molly, Cath: I will be wearing my Jeans and daggy brown, long sleeved T shirt!

A worm experiment

I don't know if this is going to work or not but wish me luck anyway!

I have built another straw bale bed and at the end nearest the house, I have installed a polystyrene box. This box has drainage holes (larger than normal), a layer of newspaper topped with a layer of my garden worms and the soil they were living in, topped with the contents of our compost bucket. I have covered this with a copy of the West Australian (shuts out the light and is nice and thick), with an old door mat on top.

My idea is that the worms will thrive, pee like mad (thus fertilising the straw bale bed) and eat up our compost. If some want to migrate into the bed, all well and good, but their food and goodies will be in the polystyrene box.

What do you all think, will it work? These poor worms are the guinea pigs before I shell out for the proper compost worms.

Not sure whether to be embarrassed or pleased.

The Tots had a playdate yesterday and while they were playing I was chatting to the lovely mother. The conversation went something like this;

"L, do you have any interest in clothes?"
"No"
"None at all?"
"No, they keep me covered and that's all that's important to me. Besides, if I get nice clothes I usually forget I am wearing them and go and play in the garden with them on."

I told The Husband this last night and he laughed and asked me what on earth I was wearing!

So please, are there others out there who have no interest whatsoever in fashion or am I alone in this?

How much 'maintenance' do you need to achieve a 'look'? How do you find a 'look'?

All to much for me to think about. Off to stomp on snails.

Edited to add: FWIW, I was wearing a clean brown long sleeve T shirt and a pair of clean jeans.

Good enough for a gift?

This is the back view of a child's apron I have just made for a birthday gift. I have sewn it really carefully but I am still doubting myself that this is good enough. I know that I have done an excellent job, not bragging but it stills so well. I am going to add a packet of brand new wooden spoons and two jars of cookie mix (with handwritten instructions).

So why do I feel that unless it is shiny, plastic and has a lable that it is inferior?

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I have found food blog heaven!

One of the other sites I visit had a link to the most amazing food blog today. Field to Feast has just the sorts of foods which I love and she creatively uses little known peasant ingredients as well. This is something I am very interested in investigating as I see that in the future we will need to know how to grow and cook filling, nutricious peasant foods.

Go and check it out and be amazed by her food, photos and creativity. Also be amazed that any country has a 50 million dollar note!

Investigating Jujubes

I have recently come across some information about Jujubes or Chinese dates. Apparently they grow really well here in WA and provide a good source of vitamins from quite early in August, a time when not much else is fruiting.

They can be eaten fresh or dried for storage. They can also be boiled with water to make a syrup for sweetening.

I will be contacting Tass1trees to see if they have any in stock. Jujubes grow 7-10 metres high on thorny trunks.

Wouldn't you know it

It rained all day long today!
So what did I do with the Tots inside?

We coloured and stuck stickers, drew flowers on the walls in blue chalk while Mummy went to the toilet (the Tots can draw fast, let me tell you!), We built a cubby over the kitchen table with three quilt covers, got into our jammies and pretended to sleep in the cubby.




Tot 2 was eyeing off the tomatoes which I picked and brought in to ripen yesterday. She is a tomato fiend.






Here are some more photos of the garden from yesterday,





Potatoes

Peas

Just some ramblings from The Crone

I have just finished reading a post on Voluntary Simplicity. This post has struck a huge cord within me and I am just going to type my response.

If I knew that there would be no more tomorrow's for me what would I do? I would grab my children and take them out into the garden. I would spend the day playing with them, letting their interests lead me where they wanted to go. Get dirty with them in the mud, pick flowers, steal fruit, wonder at the caterpillars, collect the snails and let them feed them (rather than stomp them which is what I usually do).

I would let them play with their paints in the garden, putting little handprints all over the paving. Footprints too!

I would try to etch into their little hearts how much I love them and that I was a fun person to be with.

So now you know how I am going to spend today.

But muuuuuuum, she made me do it!

http://cathsode.blogspot.com/2008/07/stage-1-and-new-aquisitions.html

I swear I hit 'buy it now' before the brain kicked in! Cossack pineapple seeds will be arriving at Wit's End in the near future :)

I am a practical person by nature

And as such I like to get busy with practical solutions to problems at ground level.

Those of you who read my vent here a few days ago may have realised how passionate I get about things; red flag to a bull? Yep, I'm a typical Taurean (is that coffee I can smell....)

So in my typical manner, I want to figure out just how we can all 'lobby' our state govt's for a more user friendly public transport system. Cwm Goch left me a message in reply to my last post that it takes her over two hours ONE WAY to get to work!

How can people be expected to commute with a time frame like that imposed upon them?

So where do I start if I want to start writing letters? How about page 35 in the WA White pages.

Hon AJ Carpenter: Premier: 24th fl. Governor Stirling Tower, 197 St Georges Tce Perth
Hon E Ripper: Min. State Dev. 28th fl. Governor Stirling Tower, 197 St Georges Tce Perth
Hon A MacTiernan: Planning/infrastructure: 13th fl, Dumas House, 2 havelock st W.Perth
Hon D Templeman: Environment: 29th fl, Allendale sq, 77 St. Georges Tce, Perth.

Now those are just a start. I will be looking for contacts for my local council, my federal level representatives, anyone and everyone in the Green party I can contact !

I know that my letters will be answered by a poor sod stuck on 'please the consituent' duty for that week (The Husband just luuuurrrrrrrves it when it's his turn) but if we get enough of us writing in they may start to take some notice.

Did you grow up without a family car?

Until I was 13 and we moved to Australia we didn't have a car. It was walk/bus/train it for everything.

We lived in Petts Wood, Kent until I was ten and then we moved to Forest Row in Sussex. School for me was always a good half hour walk away (those were the days when a six year old could walk by themselves).

I can manage without a car today if I had too. The same as I can manage without a mobile. I believe that we in Australia have become so soft that we need convenience everything; heaven forbid that our 'dial a pizza' becomes too expensive due to petrol costs that we have to get up off of our butts and go and pick it up ourselves!

The news doing the rounds today is of the CSIRO report that petrol might hit $8 or more a litre by 2018.

Ye Gods and Little Fishes!

The world is about to end because we may have to catch a bus to work!

Dammit people, think outside your own little bubble for a minute; you have ten years to prepare and change your lifestyle. Start now and keep adapting so that the impact of ever increasing oil prices is minimal to your family's life.

As I have said 'elsewhere', Go learn a new skill: quilting, knitting, gardening, tanning leather, forestry, cobbling shoes or even learn to keep fish. Don't just sit down as prices rise and whinge. Australians are do-ers; Go bloody do something then!

I think this turned into a vent!

I am failing miserably on the buy nothing challenges

'Cos I keep buying plants!

Meg, if you are reading, I have just bought a pink tea camillea! Also bought a chilian guava, a cranberry shrub and a capulin cherry!

Should I mention that the water rates, land rates, ballet fees, and house insurance 'Williams' have all arrived this week? Husband, if you are reading this, I promise I will listen to your Teresa Tang CD's without a whimper or cross look!

The Bogan neighbours are going to hate me!

A bit of history for you.

My neighhours have loud all night parties with 'doof, doof' music. They use colourful language with voices like foghorns. They have been known to jump our fence and switch our pool to 'drain'. They lob their dog's fecal matter over the fence.

I can't wait until petrol hits $5 a litre so that they can't afford to rev their car engines or do burnouts in the street.

Now, the gardener's revenge :)

Lots and lots of blood and bone and bokashi bucket dregs spread all around my garden today, with particular emphasis on the fenceline between our two properties. Did I also mention that my compost heap went stinky so I just had to turn and lime it today :)

Hardworking Hippy has Stevia, do you?

Hardworking Hippy (La Ferme de Sourrou) has posted about the herb Stevia. Of course this has now got me on a mission to find the seed of this sugar substitute herb. All of my children get terrible eczema when they eat foods high in sugar so I try to look for natural 'sweeties' for them.

When you taught me how to dance

When you taught me how to dance
Years ago with misty eyes
Every step and silent glance
Every move a sweet surprise
Someone must have taught you well
To beguile and to entrance
For that night you cast your spell
And you taught me how to dance

Light reflections in a lake
I recall what went before
As I give, I'll learn to take
And to be alone no more
Other lights may light my way
I may even find romance
But I won't forget that night
When you taught me how to dance

Cold winds blow
But on those hills you’ll find me
And I know You’re walking right behind me

When you taught me how to dance
Years ago with misty eyes
Every step and silent glance
Every move a sweet surprise
Someone must have taught you well
to beguile and to entrance
For that night you cast your spell
And you taught me how to dance
And you taught me how to dance
(Miss Potter 2006)

Just posted this song for no other reason than I have just watched Miss Potter and fallen in love with this song and the movie. Thank you Nature Witch for recommending it.

It's started raining!

Insert lots of rude words into the space below;
















Oh well, at least the plants can have a drink. This has highlighted a need for a back up energy source; time to investigate building an oven in the backgarden for just such times.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

The Crone is so excited she doesn't know what to say!

this will hopefully be a potato curry, dhal, carrot and broccoli curry, and cooked rice.

Photos of hopefully cooked dinner to come tonight!

I'm excited by the possibilities

I went to my first Post Peak Oil meeting last night and it has literally changed my perspective on how I view this challenge we all face.

Before the talk I was very pessimistic about what society as a whole would do; would it come down to us all embracing a survivalist mentality? Not a pleasant scenario to think about when you have five children.

The presenters showed me a different slant on things though; let's get things happening at a local level, get to know your local community and neighbours, start building ties, sharing knowledge and getting the word out there.

After the presentation I was chatting to a few people and as a result I am going to take some wormwood cuttings for one couple and pot up a spare ice cream bean plant for another.

This is what it's about isn't it, sharing skills, knowledge and being open to helping people who would like to know more.

It was lovely to meet all of you last night :)