Kitchen project

Making a shelf in my kitchen

So, I will start by saying that I am NOT a builder/mechanic/whatever, I am not even that much of a handy man, however having 5 acres is teaching me what I need to know :) It can be a steep learning curve at times.

So, this is my attempt at making a shelf in the kitchen. One of the biggest problems that we have here is the lack of space, it could be due to moving into a smaller house, or the fact that I have lots of 'goodies', also could be refereed to as a 'resource pile', but it all comes in handy, especially for project around the house, like this one. 

Ok, so what did I make? This is it (to the left). just a set of three shelves attached to a wall. Sounds easy? Well, it was actually :) The shelves are made from recycled wood (not the kind that you pay $100 a meter for because someone said that they are recycled, I mean that they used to be an old fence and I collected it from town and have been using bits of it for many different things.

I will step you through what I used, how I did it and all that good stuff (for anyone who might want to do something similar at home)

So firstly I found the wood. This is one of the planks of wood from a fence, I removed the nails, I was going to sand it back and stain it, however since it was a first attempt I didn't want to get too excited by it :) Turns out that the wood is far to long for where it was going to be, so using a hand saw I cut the wood to fit (1/2 way so I got to use one piece for two shelves, double score!)

Then I attached some brackets, unfortunately these were not recycled, however where cheap from the local hardware store. I am building up my supplies of things like brackets from odd things that I find laying around the town, but it all takes time. (side note, this area does not have any form of hard-waste pickup / curbside pickup, so getting secondhand/scrap things does prove to be a challenge at times)

Once it was all measured against where I wanted to put the shelf, I drilled the brackets onto the shelf first (this was really important for the second and third shelves as the drill couldn't fit between the shelves to drill upwards, make sense?)










Then, once that shelf was in place, I measured up where to put the next shelf and ensured it was level, then continued making the top shelf (so all three in the end)

Nice and easy :) So the only tools I used in this was my drill, screwdriver, hand saw and spirit-level. The hand saw was used to cut the wood to the right length, the drill was for the holes into the shelves and into the wall, the screwdriver was to screw the screws through the brackets and into the wall and shelf, and the spirit-level was to ensure that my #Vegemite would not slide away! The parts used were two old wood planks (from a fence that was reclaimed) and brackets (with screws) from the local hardware store. So nice, so simple, but it adds so much storage into the kitchen for all the things that you need frequently :) I know that this plan and idea is really simple, and most people would think that you don't need a guide on how to make it, but it is more to start to show people that there are ways to recycle things, maybe ways that you don't think of right away (like an old fence into a shelf), that is what I am hoping to continue to do, find interesting ways of reusing things around the house (saves landfill). And always on a tight budget.

Thank you for checking this out, I will continue to update you all on what I am doing, and all the different projects that I am currently involved in, a lot are much bigger than this one :)

My wife.. the blogger

So, my wife has a blog page.. I am not sure if this is a good thing, a bad thing, or a scary thing :) Considering it is called "A Preppers Wife"  and I think that it might be a slightly objective view, but that is ok.

So, about being a #prepper, well, about ME being a prepper. What I have learnt is that there are so many kinds of 'preppers' out there, the title alone is so ambiguous. Some people assume that you wear tin foil as a hat, others think that you have a large cache of underground weapons capable of taking on a small army, some think that you will quit your job and start to monitor the radio for signals that come from another planet. I am not any of those (I do like the feel of tin on my head though).

Why do I say that I am a prepper? What does it mean to me? Well, I have talked a little about this in other posts on this blog, but now I will go into some detail (without mentioning the NSA secret plots, aliens that want my toenail clippings or my long lost uncle in Nigeria), I am preparing for when I don't need society anymore.

What? That is crazy, all people need society. Is that what I hear you say? Well, if you have not read all my posts yet, you will know that yes, I am slightly insane, however what I mean by this comment is very simple (I think). What I mean is that if anything happens (government overthrown, bikie gangs rule Queensland, oil companies monopolise the industry or aliens come and take us in our sleep) I would be prepared to handle it. I would not require too much help from others to complete this. I am building a place (home) that is self-reliant, one that can live off the grid for a period of time and remain as alive and as efficient as before.

Does that mean I have a secret tank at my house and a stolen satellite?!? ... no.. sorry, I don't actually have anything as interesting as that. In fact, one of the things that I try to ensure is that everything I have and do is legal, I don't need to get in trouble for something silly and lose all that I have. I intend to get a fire-arms licence and get the right stuff (safe), and it will all be above board. I am not one of those preppers that has a laser-guided-anti-missile-seeking-nuclear-silo-anti-alien-mind-reading-probing-projectiles in my basement (I don't have a basement yet).

I think that I started to be a prepper by accident, I know that a lot of preppers reading this will most likely agree (if not now, you might by the end). I started hoarding first. I hoarded (and still do) lots of things, wood, metal, electronics, waste, I don't know the list goes on (I can detail everything if you are really that interested however it will all come out in these blog pages). I started 'collecting' all these things in case I needed them, why? Why would i need them? Who knows, literally nobody in the world could ever know why I might need some of these things, however I think that I have a problem, well, I think that is a given since I have purchased 5 acres to store it all in!!

So why is it a problem? Good question, you might be thinking right now, 'No, you are right, keep collecting all those old trampolines and freezers!' (my wife doesn't agree), however it does get to a certain point where enough is enough. I don't think that I have got there yet, but I am sure that there is a "spot". I collect things. I have a large collection of (what some may say useless) things which I hope to use for projects around the place.

Most of my prepping is not about stopping zombies or the government from stealing my basil crops, but it is about being able to live with as little purchases as possible. Right now I am relying so much on other people to "give" me things, charity. I am looking for anything really, old sinks, tvs, freezers, wood, etc. anything that I might be able to reuse into something around here. Why? Am I that cheap that I can not afford to buy a real raised garden bed from Bunnings? Well, yes. Companies over charge for things, they have to pay so many people, deliveries, packaging, warehousing, shipping, storage, etc. what if you could just buy from the guy who makes it? Surely that will save a LOT of money (e-bay is great for that), but even better, someone else has already paid silly amounts of money for something, and now either has no use for it, or it does not function in the way it was first intended to function, so they throw it out. Well, that is where I am trying to come into it. I am trying to catch all that stuff, trying to stop all that from going into the land fill. Please don't get me wrong, I am not after money for this, I don't get things that are broken, 'fix them' and then resell, I either use everything on this land (or store it for when I can use it), or give it to charity. There are a lot of people that are now donating things to me (mainly clothes and toys, etc) and I am just taking them to the local thrift shop as a donation. If I can not use it, someone else might be able to. I just want to try to stop so much landfill and save people (including me) money.

Well... I have no idea what I started writing about, but I know that the geese are outside the window right now yelling at me (they have little to no patience), so I must go now.

I will, as always, hope to update you all soon on what I am doing (and how my Adsense account is going), and anything that I hope to do in the future.

In the mean time, I hope that you all have a great weekend/night/day/life, and I hope that we can help or meet each-other soon :) and sorry for no pictures on this post, tomorrow morning I will have some about the new chicken coop :)

The big picture, hopes, goals and dreams.. - a trial run

This is a garden bed, I mean that literally, it was a bed, and old single bed (white steel framed). We collected this from someone who was throwing it out, and I kept it for a few weeks, not knowing what I actually wanted an old bed frame for, just knowing that I did not want to see more landfill, more waste created because someone had no need for something anymore. So I collected this single bed frame and stored it, I was thinking at the time that I might pull apart all the metal and use it for various projects around the place, as supports, whatever (really just trying to justify my hoardings :) )

My wife came up with the idea, she suggested that we try to use it as some form of garden framing, maybe to make a frost-free dome over veggies, or protect them from the animals around it. After playing with this idea, testing it all out and experimenting a lot, she adapted her original idea and decided to put the bed together as a bed, fill in the bottom of it using hessian and heighten the edges using old scrap wood we had around the place, then fill with dirt.

Great idea! It worked, we covered it with some old wire to protect the seedlings we were growing, and this is what happened :) (see picture)

This worked so well, that the seedlings took over really fast and we had to transplant, now the garden bed is a strawberry bed, which she loves even more :)

In the above picture you can see that there are also nasturtium growing with the strawberries, this is companion planting, it seems to be working nicely. It was meant to stop aphids from eating the strawberry plants, and BAM aphids gone :) Happy times for everyone involved (except the aphids.. sorry aphids, not today)

However, at this point you might be asking yourself about the title for this page, strawberries and recycled garden beds really don't have much to do with "hopes and dreams", unless you dream about those things. Well, in this case they as a 'trial' for what we want to dream about, confused? I would hope so!!

This house and land that we have (the 5 acres) is not my dream place, it is no where near close to it. This place is a trial run for our life. I know it sounds like an expensive trial, but there is a purpose to it all.

The one thing that most people say is that they burnt out, they took on more than they could handle at one time and everything died in a ball of fire and fairy glitter. So, we got 5 acres that we could manage alone, and we are trying out little things that we are learning. things about animal husbandry, plant welfare, aquaponics, hydroponics - WHY IT'S GREASED LIGHTENING! .. sorry.. just seamed to be going that way.

So, this place (my home) is full of odd things (not just the people and animals in it!), we have different things all over the place, things that are working, things that are failing, but things all the same. The idea is for us to grow with our knowledge and be able to get to the new place and implement things so much faster, make things work from day one. So, what is this "new place"? ..

Wait, before THAT, what about this place? Why build up 5 acres of awesomeness and then leave? Well, the idea is to rebuild this land, rebuild it in the way that it will be as natural and as native as we can, while still making it a self contained little paradise away from people and things (if that is what you want). This place will be built so that you can lock the front gate, and not have to see people, if zombies come you can hide here, if the pesky North Koreans come and want to steal the ducks from the dam, you can fend them off from here. One of the other large projects that is coming together is a root cellar, or a self-contained underground pantry :)

I intend to sell this place to a like minded person in a few years, someone who will appreciate what I have created, someone who wants to move into a place that is ready, plants with fruit on them, dams with water in them, alternate power sources, root cellars, the works :) Nothing to do but to sit on the back porch in the rocking chair, playing your three stringed banjo and chewing on some jerky... sounds nice eh? :) I know that it is not for everyone, that is why I think that I will sell this place myself, to a targeted audience, not the mainstream. 

Well, I must get back to actually living the life that I am talking about :) things to be done, this morning I am moving an old van, gutting it and making it into a new chicken house, I will update you tomorrow or whenever with some pictures and information and hopefully it all works (yes, I have scotch on stand-by!), and I will tell you more about my dream land, about where I want to be and what size, shape, color the place will be, later :)

For now, enjoy your day where ever you are (I know here it looks like a great day weather-wise), be happy :)

Making money, does it rule the world?

Life is all about money, everything is about money, and that is sad. Life should be about life, about living, about enjoying things that you love, not about working 12hrs a day, 6 days a week, not seeing the life that you are missing.

I know that so far what I have written about is erratic and random, and mostly about gardens and animals, however money still rules the world. I would love to live in a society without money. Food is Free project is something that I love, I think that this is a perfect idea, a perfect start. However, I can not really start this project at full speed due to not having enough money to start it :) So, I must work.

However, there are a few things that I have started to do to try to help earn extra money to start my money-less life/venture. Ad Sense from Google, I have just applied to get that on this blog, I know that I don't have anywhere enough viewers/followers yet, and I know that my content is not particularly helpful to anyone (except maybe a student studying some strange disorder that involves hoarding and self-sufficiency!) however I can try. I am trying to make the content of this blog interesting and entertaining for people to view, and I am learning about how to actually allow people to FIND this blog (advertising).

The other money making thing I am doing is Mysurvey.net.au. This works. All you do is spend 5-30 mins (depending on the survey) and they just ask you for what you think about things (creates those ads that say "9 our of 10 people think this package looks good"...) and those 'points' that you score for your opinions convert into vouchers, shopping (food/clothes), fashion, electronics (JB Hi-fi) and more! This helps as I use that for vouchers in the shopping center to get groceries, that frees up my money for buying gardening stuff (or paying bills).

I suppose the other thing that I do is barter. Trading good that I grow(or eggs) for other veggies that I don't grow yet. This means that having 12 eggs in a day is not a waste, I trade 12 eggs for some pumpkin, lettuce and beans, happy times! :) Everyone is happy (everyone involved that is), until I get my gardens up and running this is a great thing, in fact, even with my gardens up it means that I don't have to grow everything I need/want. I have also found people that are happy to trade manure for food, sometimes things like empty bottles, bags, etc. for produce. This means that you could have food, fresh organic healthy food, from what people call rubbish! Fantastic.

My gardens are getting along, just time.. a whole lot of precious time...  The only problem with the survey site is that it takes time, and like I just said, everything else that I want to do takes time. I think that I could fill up 38 hours in a day with what I would like to do, but work suggests that I visit them also, it is hard to be so wanted sometimes ;) Speaking about my work place, some of the people there spend all their time playing computer games (after hours mostly), when they ask me what games I like to play, or do I have the latest 'what-not' game, I just let them know that I don't play games, I don't have the time, I don't even watch TV that often (sometimes in the evening with diner). They do not understand how I could not have all these games, gadgets and TV shows to fill my life with, but then again, they don't have the beautiful animals that I have to wake up with, or to see the blossoming flowers of the different plants in the gardens :) Whatever makes you happy though.

Even with the best barter system, even with getting 'vouchers' for the supermarkets, you still need to pay the bills, you still need to worry about fuel for the car, insurance, etc.. so money is still needed. I just want to live without such a dependency on it. I want to live in a society where money is a by-product of something else, and not a goal to reach.

Well, enough depressing talk about money and working too hard for it, here is something nice to look at, this was in bloom this morning, it was watching the sunrise :)

Sunflower

OK, life calls me again, it is time....

Have a great day, enjoy life, enjoy the small things that make you happy :) Don't work to make someone else happy

Alone in the world..?

You know that feeling you get sometimes, that feeling that you are all alone, I don't mean in the universe, as in are Aliens real, I mean just at home. That feeling that you are fighting a battle all alone. That feeling that every good idea you have, every new thing you try there is nobody there to assist you, to help you create it, to support you. You feel like this bird, not even big enough to see over the grass, lost, helpless. (BTW, this little bird was rescued about 2 weeks ago and rehabilitated and will be re-homed)

Well, I get that feeling a lot. I don't know why. I have a beautiful and supportive wife who lets me make/do whatever around here, and collect all the parts that I need (or don't need yet, and don't know what I might need them, but I have them anyway). Sometimes though you get this warm little fuzzy feeling inside you that there is someone there to support you, sometimes you get that glimmer of hope, this happened just the other day.

One of the big things that I try to do around here is to not create too much waste, and take others waste and re-use it for other purposes. So, when my wife said to me "you know, we should stop using these liquid soaps and body washes because there is a lot of extra packaging that is unnecessary", it is little things like that, the small things that people say, that make you feel like you are not alone fighting this endless battle against consumerism and the constant waste that the world is producing. It is little things like this that give you hope that there are other "like-minded" people out there, people that do think about things other than themselves. Don't get me wrong, I am in a lot of groups involving recycling/re-using/re-purposing, waste reduction, greener living, etc..  but nothing beats support at home, support from friends and family, the people that you love.

I know my cat Buttons doesn't support me, he woke me up from 2300 last night until about 0300 asking for food every 12 minutes... that is not supportive, that is him wanting me to support his weight management problem!

Well, speaking about being alone in the world, I need to go to work soon, or I will have all the chances to be alone and jobless! :) (although not having a job does sound appealing at times), I have a lot of 'catch-up' work to do, I have been off work this week (sounds great!) however it was to go to a funeral for a family member, it was one of those sad times where you look at your life, the impact you make on others around you, and think more about the people that you wish you could see more often. Death is something that always makes people think about their own mortality and reconsider their life choices (so hearing my wife talk about recycling helps me know that I do make some right choices in life!)

However, I must leave you all now, things to be done, worlds to be saved!

Gardening and Prepping..

Gardening and Prepping, nearly the same...

What is prepping? Well, what does that word mean to me is a better question. You hear the word "Prepper" (or some variety of) a lot more these days, mainly due to shows like "Dooms Day Preppers" and the like. So, why would I say that gardening and prepping are the same? Gardens and zombies, EMPs, civil unrest, they don't normally go together, but in my case I think they do. 

Let me just say, I don't think that zombies are about to jump out of the sewers and eat peoples brains, but I do believe that the world that we are living in is changing fast, and not for the best. So, if you haven't worked it out yet, if I garden and create my own livable area, an area that is self-sufficient. I realise that it is hard for humans to become self-sufficient, however it is easier for plants to do it. So what I am hoping to create is something that will create food, warmth, shelter, harness water and protect itself from predators (bugs and what-not). Above is the first 4 garden beds we put in around September 2014, below is the same garden currently (taken start of February 2015). 

Firstly I would love to note how much better the area around it looks, so nice and green and alive. The previous owners to our place didn't really care for green, or dirt, or trees, or air, or life. I have no idea what they were doing with 5 acres, I don't think that they knew either. They helped destroy this land, there was so much damage when we got here, so much of our time (even now) is spent just trying to 'clean up' the messes and try to reverse the damage done to the place.

Since we are trying to live with the land, we created this enclosed garden bed. It is just over 6' high and fully surrounds the 4 garden beds. This is to stop possums, bids (including my chickens/ducks) and any other animals that would like to munch on what I have done. The gardens themselves are not thriving as much as I would like, but I have learnt a lot since first planting them, since the soil was so bad we got some nicer soil (hence why they are slightly raised), however since the soil below the raising is so poor as the roots got through the good stuff they are met by nothing good. So, what have I learnt from this, you must make sure the soil below is perfect first. This is hindering the development of my garden. They are getting there, just slowly :) For our first attempt I am happy though.

The edgings of the garden are made from an old above ground swimming pool, the wooden stakes are either recovered or leftovers from other jobs, and the wire was spares from the chicken pen fencing.

So, what am "I" prepping for? Nothing particular, just a nice happy future with my own veggies, and eggs. I don't want to be so reliant of the main system (shopping centers) I want to know what goes into/onto my food, I want to be able to grow enough food on this land that I can happily share with the animals around me, and the people around me also. Our idea is to have multiple fruit trees and food sources around the yard, some that are not protect from animals, so the wild birds (and the chickens) can eat the fruits and nuts from those, and other gardens (like the above) that are for human consumption. I plan on eating from the "wild" trees also, but if the animals get there first, we won't stave.

Ok, it is nearly 0600, I have a lot of work on today, so I best get to it. Enjoy your day, hopefully you are doing something that you love doing today.

Until my next update, have a great life!

Recycled life, time travel and the North Koreans... does that include Zombies?

It's life... but not as we know it... 

or maybe you do know it like that? I don't know, but one thing I do know is that I like to recycle things. Recently I have heard a new term - "Up-cycling". Instead of recycling, up-cycling is getting old things and making them live again, most of the time for a different purpose than originally designed. This is interesting, because until I learnt that new word I have always called it recycling. I suppose it makes sense, recycling always sounded like melting metal down into new metal things, etc. In the bigger picture of life, I don't think it really matters what you call anything, as long as the intention is there. So, my intention is to try to build things around my place using either old items that can still do their job but are just not 'fashionable' or 'neat and clean' anymore, or using things (like in the above picture) for a different purpose than they were built for originally.

Why? Why don't I just go to 'Ikea' or 'Harvey Normans' or what-not and buy that new fluorescent pink chair in the shape of a giant hand, or the yellow and black bookcase that has an 'interesting' lean on it that makes you think you have either taken excessive drugs, or maybe 'Pants theory of gravity manipulation' might actually be correct and there is no spoon.. wait, where am I going with this you might ask? (I have forgotten also, lets get back to the point). Why don't I just buy that stuff? Sometimes it is because "things aren't built like they where in my days", and I know that the item will fall apart 1 day after the 6 month warranty, but I think that the main reason why I don't buy mainstream 'fashionable' pink fluorescent hands to sit on is because (it looks stupid) I don't see the need to buy new things when the world is full of perfectly good things already.

Why waste money (especially if it is tight) on buying new fancy-pants shiny things, when finding an old rake head that is rusty and probably not too good at raking (especially without a handle) and using a left over screw and three different sized washers (also left over from who-knows-where) and making a really cool looking 5 wine glass holder, or a holder for serving spoons/wooden spoons that have the holes in the handles (they can hang from the spiky parts of the rake), and as a bonus, when zombies come knocking you can pull it off the wall and use it as a weapon to slay the unholy beasts and send them back to the hellish corner from where they came (or just kill them, whatever)

Enough about zombies, back to recycling/up-cycling/reusing, whatever you want to call it. I have so many ideas about what I want to do in this place, but sometimes what I lack the most is either motivation or inspiration. The above piece I had in my head for ages, in fact I actually had all the parts to make it (not all in the one spot), but getting the motivation to do things sometimes is so hard, I don't know why. I made this while I mum was staying over for a few days, for some reason I had motivation to do several things that I had been meaning to do. Maybe it was because I wanted to show her what was in my head, not sure, all I know is that for some strange reason you can get inspiration from people you don't expect, at times that you don't expect either. I am not saying that my mum is my muse, merely that I had motivation, maybe I wanted to impress her, or maybe I just wanted to hide in the shed and make something? :) Perhaps..

Some of the things that I want to make around here are; a system to move water around the damn, shelter for the alpacas, a wood shed, alternate power generators, the cat-io (see a previous post), more garden beds, a new quarantine pen for new birds/animals we get, and the list goes on... So many days (like today) my knee is playing up already and it is only 0600, so I don't feel motivated because I am sore. People say that you have the energy when you are young and the ideas when you are old, too bad when you are young and have the energy you don't listen to the older people with the ideas. Too bad you can't go back in time.. or can you?

People have two ideas about time travel, either it does NOT exist because there would be people here today that are from the future (and like the show "Back to the future", they would stick out) and people would have gone back to the days of castles and taken a full-auto 50cal machine gun and absolutely dominated and became "supreme-leader-and-ruler-of-all-known-galaxies" (I suppose like that guy from North Korea). The other idea is that if you go back in time you would create an alternate time line, therefor creating a new future, one that is not the one that I am in today, because this one is the one where the other one of you (that didn't do the time travel) did not change my history and therefor the history I know has not been altered since I can't change what I already know (which is why it is so hard to teach an old dog new tricks), therefor the other version of you did not change history, but merely wrote a new future by doing something slightly differently. The interesting part about this theory is that I might not know you, you might have nothing to do with my life at all, yet the path that you are now on does not include the same version of me. I think that it might have something to do with the butterfly theory, 7 degrees of separation, and all that. All I know is that there is a bloke somewhere who went back to the beginning of time (either Adam and Eve or the big bang), and is having a really fun time riding dinosaurs and eating caviar from a coconut shell and no one tells him to take his feet of the coffee table. Ah, what a life he would be having.

Anyone, it is now about 0630, so I must go, there is a murder of crows outside calling me... eerie...

Until my next update, I hope that you are all inspired or motivated by someone or something in your lives

Travel time, flowers and oxygen...

A drive home

This is a picture of part of my drive home, it is the longest part of my day. It is the part of the day that I know I am going home, I have so much to do there (so sometimes I think that it is overwhelming) but I think that it is the longest time because it is the last thing that stands between me and our property. However, it is such a nice drive :)

During this drive (once I am off the main road) I only see maybe 5 other cars, and the closer to home I get the less cars I see, and the more the cars I see are the same. This is a nice thing, for a few reasons; if something/someone changes in our area, everyone knows about it. They say that you can't keep a secret in a small town, that is not always a bad thing (unless you are doing something wrong). It is nice to know that if there is a car that doesn't belong people will notice it, If there is someone doing something they shouldn't be doing, people will notice it.

Knowing everything around you is not always a good thing (for one it is tiring), it is also sad. It is sad to see trees and green around you, then the bulldozers move in. Development is a necessary part of forward movement, however I think that people do it too abruptly and too self-centered. They will move into an area and flatten the whole lot, then build what they want, then plant some nice decorative flowers and trees (small for low maintenance) in the area. The most common complaint you hear - "Possums are nesting in my roof", well, you killed their homes, where are they going to go? You need to try to balance with the nature around you. It is such a beautiful thing, the native trees and plants in the area, it is nice to try to live 'with' them rather than kill them because they are there. Most of the time they are not even in the way, people are just scared. In reality what do we even need trees for? They don't do all that much do they? Just drop leaves on the floor.. nothing about creating homes for native animals (under the fallen leaves, in the bark, in/on the tree), disregard that annoying thing you learnt in primary school about photosynthesis and something about oxygen, I think it is all over rated, you get so much oxygen from the air-conditioner in your car, office and work place, you don't need it floating off into the sky, what does the sky need oxygen for? What a waste.

Side note: If you haven't gathered by now, my conversations (with myself normally) get side tracked and I go on rants about whatever is on my mind. I think that is the point of this blog, so sane people can get a look at the inner workings on insanity, at least I think so.
Oh and most of my rants are about stupid people around me doing stupid things.

I think the other thing to notice is the diversity of the topics of conversation. For example, this blog was originally titled "Travel Time", because I was going to chat about the drive home from work each night, the love I have for my property and the area I live in, and probably something mushy about my wife and monsters, however, now no-one has any idea what will come next, probably nothing about cars or travel, so the title will get changed (as most of them have so far)

I was just outside, with the chickens, and I saw a new flower that the morning light has opened up :
This beautiful sunflower :)

Then, whilst still around outside I figured I would see some other flowers, and this is what we have:

 I know that this purple one is a "Morning Glory", it is such a beautiful vine/flower and does a great job of beautifying things in the garden, I don't recall the name of the white flower, but it smells really nice and it is looking great.

I love the flowers, trees, grasses and everything else about this place, it is such a nice place to come and relax and potter (also so much work to be done, so it is not always relaxing, but the idea is there).

Well, it is getting late, in the morning (0620) I must start with other things, Saturdays are always a nice day because the timings are a little different to that of the working day, I get to spend more time in the mornings doing things that I like, such as tending to the animals and gardens.

Well, I must be off, my people (animals) need me, and I am hungry so I think that it is breakfast time (I hear a faint murmur coming from the vicinity of my wife).

I will keep you all updated and soon I will start to put up pictures and writings on what I have done around here (and try to keep on topic) and what I hope to do.

Happy Chickens (and secret NSA plot)

My happy girls

This picture is a little old, only about 9 months or so, but it is from when we first moved in. The girls (now a lot more) were getting to know the place :) On the right you can see Charlie, she is the only little bantam chicken we have, we got her from a "rescue" the last owners/breeders where closing down and we went just to see if there was anything we needed (wire, feeders, etc) and the place was feral. There were dead baby chickens throughout the floor (been dead for so long that some where just bones...) normal things that you see from uneducated breeders like over population, confined cages, etc. and Charlie was there, a baby chicken, a few days old. Charlie ended up in our custody and now thinks she is about 10" tall!!

Since this photo was taken a lot has changed, firstly the amount of animals, but the regeneration of the land has also really taken off. Charlie has also raised babies of her own, with out the need of a rooster! (yes, she is independent) We got some fertilized eggs from a friend when Charlie was broody and 4 babies hatched. She was the proudest mum ever (mind you all her babies are now twice her size!)

When I look at some older photos like this one (and regret not taking more 'before' photos), I am so happy to know how far we have come and how much we have done. What we are doing here is so minimal compared to what needs to happen in the world, I will not harp on right now about the problems that we have in regards to food production, sustainability, etc, but there is a huge problem. I like the idea that I am involved with a lovely group of people that like to grow there own produce, and more, and 'trade' with other people. It is so nice to know that. This means that there are less caged eggs being brought from the shops, less chemically grown/maintained foods in circulation, and the place gets greener (in looks) which is so nice compared to concrete buildings everywhere. It is nice to see so many nice eatable gardens popping up in suburbia, some people at work have started asking me about what to do with chickens (are they easy to keep, what to feed them, etc..) which is great that people are starting to become more self reliant on some things (we have to start somewhere). And then there is the conversation about keeping money local, don't get me wrong, the local supermarket is a global company that uses all its money to fund secret NSA satellites that spy on me when I sleep (I am actually really interesting when I sleep) and we should keep the money local instead of helping the NSA spy on me, however they do give local people jobs, which gives them money, and the large chains are a necessity in modern day living. I do like giving money (or produce) to local people though, and keeping things close to home, gives you a warm fuzzy feeling :)

BTW, if the NSA are actually spying on me it means that there is nothing else important to do with government assets, so it makes me happy to know this, means there are no more nasty terrorists running around :)

Anyway, I must be going, I have another day of work (not the fun kind) to be doing, so I must get all my goodies in one basket for that.

And if anyone out there would like to donate money to the "Jimmy should get to stay home in order to make the world a better place" fund, please feel free to contact me and we can talk :)

Last thing (I promise), I don't actually think that the NSA are spying on me, or that they are capable of spying on anyone, and I don't make any actual accusations towards the NSA in regards to what they do or don't do with their governments money/assets. (..just in case.. I don't want the American government to sue me!) but I do believe in the "Food is Free" project and home grown produce!

The Princess

This is Pants. Pants is the oldest of our 3 cats, she is a Princess. She is a loving, gentle and caring cat, however that is only when SHE wants to, if she is in one of her "moods", she will ignore you, she will yell at you, she will hide from you (for no good reason).

I will learn how to use this blog site correctly, because the glory that is Pants could not be contained in a mere page of black and white text and one photo, I will upload videos of her, photos of her and lots more information as this whole blog site develops.

Pants is like an angel, when she wants to jump onto something (bookcase, top of fridge, top of the printer...) she will just appear to drift up there gracefully as if gravity was an suggestion and she had no time for silly nonsense like that, she must be on high to survey her minions.

She loves to go outside, she is not allowed to go outside. Pants is a domesticated cat, a predator to nearly everything outside that we are trying to protect (Buttons has even been eyeing off the Alpacas...) so, in order to keep the peace in "the house of the mighty and glorious and beautiful and angelic and graceful Pants" (as she likes to call it), we have built a "cat-aranda". This is an outdoor area (which used to be a veranda) which we covered in chicken wire (I will add a photo when I can find/get one). This is accessible through the laundry in the house, and has a human sized door so we can leave from it into the backyard. Pants like this place, she allows the other cats to join her there, which they all appreciate.

There is a new addition to the house plans, and that is to build a "cat-io", this is like a patio..... but for cats. This is a larger venture, which will cost money and time, both of which I am still very short on.

Enough about building things, this page is about Pants!! :)

You will notice that in pretty much every photo of Pants she is looking amazing, it is actually a fact that you can not take a bad photo of Pants, it is just impossible (unlike defying gravity).

Ok, I must go, I know, there is still so much beauty to talk about with Pants, however, I can hear 30 odd birds (and yes, they are all actually a bit odd) starting to wake up, so I must go now, let them roam free in the yard and give them some seed, and continue to get ready for work...

I hope you all have a great day, and please feel free to look at photos of Pants all day (you can actually print them out and put them on your desks at work!)