how much of my fruit and veg is local?

On the left is produce from abroad and on the right it is mainly local apart from the apples.

I always try and make sure that I get as much of my shopping from local shops as possible, partly to support local businesses and not big supermarkets. A local shop is part of the community as well as being able to source local produce. However I wanted to see what percentage of my grocery shop came from a local source.

This is a ordinary grocer’s not a farm or organic shop. I could walk alot further to the edge of town to an organic farm shop but I choose not to as I find it difficult to get to and more catered to the middle class market rather than the ethical shopper. I admit that the price puts me off.

We try and grow as much as possible for ourself but we still do not have the room to be fully self-sufficient in fruit and veg, so have to resort to the grocers at this time of year. I try and buy as much local produce as possible as it’s supporting my locality and also local, normally means that it is in season too.

I would say that on average my grocery shopping is 50/50 local to food from abroad.

All this is grown locally apart from the apples which come from another part of England. The eggs are free range and also come from a local farm.

This pile is the one that I always struggle with. Do I need bananas and grapes? The answer is no but we love them so what can you do at this time of year, when there is little by the way of seasonal fruit? The other veg are also not in season but with a vegetarian in the house I like to have a wide range of foods on offer. I also love mushrooms and these were on offer, the whole bag for 50p as they were on their way out, so I saved those from the bin.

This whole shop came to just over £11 this will last us a week, together with what is left over from last week. I decided not to buy meat this week as we have alot of fish in the freezer and have been eating alot of meat recently and I made a promise to our daughter that we would make more vegetarian meals. We are well stocked with other food so that will be about it for this week, not bad for a family of 5. On average we spend between £20 to £50 on food a week.

No it’s not all local and it’s not all organic but I like my local shop and I still try to make sure most of my other food is organic and only a small percentage comes from the supermarket. It’s a step in the right direction.

Rand park farm

Yes they should have been at school but for me they will have learned more today than in the last month spent in the class room.

learning to milk a cow, in the old days it was all done this way, except they used a cow!

here is a real cow being milked

feeding very hungry lambs

cozy piglets

just cute

escaped rabbit

this lamb had just been born today

I think this is far enough

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

freestanding not fitted

Take back control don’t live your life through a catalogue. Why support mass production and designer culture when you can be an individual and help reduce waste by reusing old furniture. There are so many positives when you do this, you often get old furniture cheap but not as with modern culture at the expence of quality. Most of the furniture we have is pre 1960’s and we have never paid over £100 for any piece we have. The white kitchen cabinet in the photo was £75, the green one was free and the one in the middle was £20. Most of them needed a little work but mainly just a paint job and a good clean.

They give us loads of space, a sense of individuality and best of all a cheap kitchen. Many people spend thousands on a fitted designer kitchen as seen on TV or in a magazine. They buy into a lie that this will give them credability and style, where as in actual fact it’s just boring and will be out of date in six months.

So much good quality furnature gets smashed up and sent to land fill each year, furniture that can so easily be reused again and again. It’s just a sign of our throw away and fickle culture that something over ten years old is dated where as something over one hundred years is a sort after antique.

I do admit that part of it for us is we like having an eclectic house, I don’t think that we have a new piece of furnature in the house but there is no reason why people with no real interest can’t pick something up from freecycle or a secondhand shop.

Free yourself keep kitchens freestanding.

Now before any of my friends say “hang about, you have fitted sink units” yes thats true but only because they are the ones that were there when we moved here. We simply made new fronts and replaced the handels. We recently got a new workopt as we put the old sink and worktop in the utility room. We tried to waste as little as possible.

making a mallet or maul

I thought that today I would make something with all the free wood that I have collected from Normanby park in the past few weeks. However I still have not been able to source the correct string/rope for the pole lathe so turning was out of the question still. Not wanting to just practice carving styles I decided to make something practical, but what? I decided after a cup of tea that what I needed is a way to split/cleave wood safely. I was also a bit bored and wanted to get on with something straight away.

Firstly choose a log it wants to be at least 2′ long as it gives you chance to coose the right part to cut. It also helps if it is as straight as possible. I chose a very heavy log as I wanted the weight for splitting rather than for use like a mallet but the principal is the same. I have made a few of these over the years partly for fun and partly a they get lost and broken but as they are free to make who cares?

Cut the end off your log so that you have a flat end it looks better but also allows you to stand it on it’s end when not in use this will stop it rolling away! Next cut into the log a few inches all the way round, this gives you the thickness of the handel so guage this first, it does not need to be to exact.

When you have done this think about the size of your handel I like to keep mine long so that I can have a bit of counter weight to the heavy maul. Keep the handel part as long as you can as you will always be able to cut it shorter at the end.

Next is the part where you have to be careful, cleaving the the log to shape the handel. When holding it try and keep your thumb off the top! If you had a froe you could use this but I don’t.

When it’s at this stage, you don’t need to take such heavy blows, it’s more shaping now into a comfortable handel. I try and keep the end thicker to add a little weight. This will allow me to split wood safely as I don’t need to hold a log and bring down the axe, I can now rest the axe on the wood and bring down the maul to cleave the wood.

Thats it easy, you can clean it up if you wish but I don’t just remove and sharp edges. They are great to take camping for tent pegs and also if you leave it behind you just make another.

Brigg farmers’ market

Yesterday was Brigg farmers’ market, it’s been running for about 7 years now and yesterday was embarrassingly, the first time I have made it, even eco-warriors get lazy sometimes. This time I had no excuse as I was getting a lift from a friend. We got there about 12.30 and already it seemed as if some stalls had sold out, a much more popular event than I had allowed for.

All the produce was local and appart from a few naff sweet stalls most of the produce looked fresh and was worth taking a closer look. My favouite part is that most of the stalls have a try before you buy pollicy, which I like.

There were quite a few stallholders I recognised,

‘Bridge farm organic foods’ an organic farm near Gainsborough which I offered to volunteer at and was asked about a job there, but sadly it would mean two bus jorneys and a two mile walk to get there!

‘Mount pleasant windmill’ which is in Kirton and opposite my wifes aunties house. They produce organic flours and breads, all by traditional means.

I also saw Sue and Rob our friends and neighbours who produce some of the best cakes in the world. Also getting into conversation with them they told me about other events that they do like this and that I should get something together and get a stall. Possibly selling homebrew chilli brandy in wooden bottles turned on the polelathe? or something, but I will definatly consider it for the future.

A few people recognised me from the paper which was nice and in all the excitement I did not buy alot, perhaps a good thing. I did get some powerful chilli sauce from the Gringerly gringo stall. It does exactly what it says on the tin, it’s HOT ! I also got R a bath bomb, to try and encourage him to actually have one sometimes.

It was nice to spend time with my friend Colin and his daughter and it was also an eye opener that for vegans the farmers market is a little slim on produce.

Brigg also has some great shops, health food shops, Oxfam books, a rather cute grocers and a looking great deli, so if you live in the area you should deffinatly take a look. The farmers market is on the fourth Saturday of every month, so see you there next time.

global warming who cares ?

I keep reading websites and blogs- most of them American- which state that there are still no direct causes between man and global warming and that man made global warming is just a myth. I t appears that many meteorologists are sceptical about global warming.

In the media we are still arguing over whether it is true or not? Are we in for a warmer climate? are the sea levels going to rise ? are we going to have a new ice age? My answer to all those sceptical people is who cares?

If it is happening or not, is it not a good thing, that we are collectively thinking about our environment? is it not a good thing that we are taking steps to reduce the ammount of waste we each produce? The new interest in global warming and environmental issues can only be a good thing, right?

To me it does not matter why people are starting to recycle and think about where their produce comes from or how much waste they produce, it’s the fact that they are doing it. Whether you are thinking about the environment, money or living a lower impact lifestyle, the less we consume, the less we produce and the less fossil feuls we use the better.

If it takes the fear of climate change to wake up some people to the fact that we are living a vulgar and non sustainable existance, good. The fact is that we are, polluting the planet, nobody can argue that, so therefore reducing our personal environmental effect is a good thing.

If in the news it said “we were all wrong about climate change” how many people would stop taking an interest and forget recycling and where their food comes from? Climate change is not a single issue but seems to attract a single minded attitude, our planet is constantly being polluted, day and night, if this changes the climate or not, should we not try and do something about it?

no to New Tesco express in Ashby

TESCO EVERY LITTLE HURTS

Sorry for all the people who don’t know where on earth Ashby is but this is really just to those that do. I just wanted to say that I encourage everybody to forget the new Tesco and carry on shopping locally, I will not be shopping there and will keep getting my weekly shop from the places where I have built up a relationship with the people who work there, and who try where possible to source local produce.

I have talked before about shopping locally and don’t want to go over it again, but I fear that this new store is going to effect the already struggling small businesses.

Tesco now controls 30% of the grocery market in the UK. In 2006, the supermarket chain announced over £2.2 billion in profits. Growing evidence indicates that Tesco’s success is partly based on trading practices that are having serious consequences for suppliers, farmers and workers worldwide, local shops and the environment.

quote taken from tescopoly.org

positive feedback

I’ve had alot of positive feedback from my article in the paper. Only one person has contacted me through my blog the rest were actually ‘real people’ in the real world, which has been nice, mainly as it confirms that there are people out there who care.

The kids came home saying “everybody wants to know when they can have some cider” I said “the kids?” “no the teachers” they replied! R today asked if he could take a copy of the article to school to show everyone, I touched that he’s so proud.

When I went to the local grocers the guy said he’d seen me in the paper and promptly gave me a large bag of apples and said there would be plenty more where that came from if I wanted it. This is an ideal opportunity to ask for any veg that they can no longer sell, food for free!

Best of all I ‘ve been offered a few gardening jobs in the area, I’m not sure if I can do it yet but will certainly keep it in mind. I’m also considering contacting the local primary school were R goes to try and encourage them- because of the article in the paper- to start a permaculture garden, it’s a project that I’ve wanted to do for a long time.

february’s garden photo

I had an idea to take a photo of the garden every month, so here goes, here is February’s, I hade to make it into a collage as I don’t have a fancy digital camera, but you get the idea.

I had to make it big so you can see the detail but it’s cut off the patio.

here is another, this is my pride and joy I love my garden, it means so much to me. Although it’s very bare at the moment.

five minutes of fame

I finally got my self-sufficiency article in the local paper today, there are some cheesy photos of me too but I’ll spare you them, http://www.thisisscunthorpe.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=153005&command=displayContent&sourceNode=152831&contentPK=16663677&folderPk=86735&pNodeId=152562here is a copy of it.

GOING WILD IN NATURE’S BARGAIN LARDER

09:45 – 17 February 2007
If You go down to the woods today, you are bound to find a feast of free food, according to one man who is pioneering the Good Life ethos.

Now Antony Jones (29), of Asterby Road, Scunthorpe, is urging other families to follow his lead and start foraging for tasty morsels in the region’s woodlands.The father of three explained: “My aim is to be able to live as simply as possible.

“Although where we live can never sustain us totally, I want to make the most of what we have.

“I would love to live on a small holding and become completely self-sufficient.

“But I also believe it is just as important to be able to produce some of your own food and supplement that with ethical shopping when in an urban environment.”

At present, Antony is a registered carer for his disabled mother, but he is working to become a permaculture designer.

He explained a permaculturist is someone who uses the ethic of caring for the earth to create sustainable human environments, including planning gardens, allotments and small-holdings for people.

“We also forage locally for fruit and mushrooms,” he said.

“Bottesford Beck is a goldmine. I’ve found wild hops, sloe, haw, elder and rowan berries, brambles, crab apples, rosehips and nettles.

“Most of the woods around Scunthorpe are good, but it depends on what you are after.

“Normanby Hall has a big mulberry and chestnut tree. If you look alongside roadsides you often find wild and crab apple trees. My mushroom sites, however, are a secret.”

Antony, his wife Ursula and their three children, moved into their four-bedroom council home eight years ago.

Today, they produce around half of their own fruit and vegetables and hope to expand this by getting another adjacent plot of land.

Keeping up with the Joneses means making your own bread, chutneys, jam, lemonade, ginger beer, nettle beer and even a cider – nicknamed Sunny Scunny Scrumpy!

But the lifestyle does sometimes get tricky in the busy hub of modern life.

Antony said: “Sometimes I find it hard to keep up my ethics and motivation because amongst my friends, I am still the pioneer.

“Luckily, I have a very understanding wife who supports me.”

For more information look on Antony’s blog on http://welcome to voluntarysimplicity.wordpress.com/