Christmas 2012: done and dusted

I have logged on to wordpress today to discover that my last blog post was the 5th December.  I guess with all the craziness in the lead up to Christmas, blogging was on the bottom of my to do list.  Christmas is typically a very busy time for us, particularly as some of my extended family go extremely over the top with celebrations.

This Christmas for me was a little different.  My environmentally friendly lifestyle change is only a recent thing that has transpired over about the last six months.  As I sat and watched the kids open far to many Christmas presents revealing toys that they probably didn’t really need, I pondered over what the less fortunate were doing, and how many kids were missing out on toys this Christmas.  As we sat down to a breakfast and Christmas lunch, I gave a quick thought to where our food had come from, I was feeling a little guilty about the fact that I was about to indulge in food that had not been farmed in the nicest of ways.  My contribution to Christmas lunch was bio-dynamically grown pork and a salad, which unfortunately was shop bought.  I fully intend to be growing more of my own food by next Christmas and hopefully I will be able to supply a fresh salad straight from my garden.

Although the gift giving was way over the top, some of my family members have obviously realised how important my hippiness is and went to the trouble of buying gifts in line with my new beliefs.  My wonderful sister-in-law gave me a dwarf lemon tree, my darling mother gave me some terracotta herb labels and Miss Three was lucky enough to receive some gardening gloves, watering cans and gardening tools.

My new dwarf lemon tree

Terracotta herb labels

Miss 3’s new gardening tools

Now that Christmas is over, my thoughts and plans turn to the new year and what it might bring.  The second half of 2012 dealt some of my family members some tough blows so I am looking forward to 2013 being a better year for all of us.  2013 will also bring extensions to my gardens and preparing them for planting out when the whether cools towards the end of March.  Yes, we do have to wait that long for the whether to cool down.  The last few days have seen 30 degrees at 7am with 90+ humidity and while my chillis and strawberries have been suffering , my sweet potatos are loving the heat and high humidity.

Sweet potato garden

I’ve also had some coconuts fall from my coconut trees so keep your eyes pealed for my next blog post on my attempts to make coconut milk from fresh coconuts.

The heat of it

Today is one of those days in North Queensland where you get out the shower, dry yourself and your still wet.  You walk from the car to your front door and your dripping with sweat.  You don’t even think about drinking coffee because it’s just too hot.  In fact, you think twice about even going outside.  At 8am this morning it was already 30 degrees.  The overnight temperature didn’t drop below 27 degrees.  Right now outside it’s 32 degrees but it feels a lot hotter than that.  When I checked on the internet, it said the current temperature was 32 degrees but the apparent temperature (or feels like temperature) is 34 degrees.

These hot temperatures make it difficult to get out into the garden because it’s just too hot.  On the upside though, the heat and humidity has been great for my sweat potatoes who have only been in the ground for four weeks but are growing beautifully.

Day one – 1st November

Sweet potatoes 4 weeks after planting

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

The first of December, I think, would have to be my most favourite day of December.  I think I like it even more than Christmas day itself.  Mainly due to the fact that certain members of my extended family go way over the top with presents and food.  It has always annoyed me as I’ve always seen it as a waste, but even more so since I started my hippy journey.

My husband has a rule that NO Christmas decorations can be put up until 1st December under any circumstances.  So given that he worked all day today (5.30am until 4pm), Miss 3 and I had to wait all day before we could start the decorating.  On the up side, I was able to use it as a bribe for good behaviour all day.  It worked a treat.  Infact, she kept saying to me all day “I’m being a good girl aren’t I mummy?”

Needless to say, once Daddy got home, we spent the next hour or so listening to Christmas Carols and decorating the lounge room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t know what it’s like in your part of the country but up here decorating the outside of the house with Christmas lights is the done thing.  Of course that poses a problem for me this year, what with my new found hippiness.  I was VERY excited the other day to find solar powered Christmas lights.  I also managed to pick up some more this morning.  Now, not all of the lights on my house are solar powered, but given that we have solar electricity, I’m pretty sure that counteracts the fact that my lights are not solar.  I must apologise for the fuzziness of this photo but for some reason it was the best I could get and I really wanted to share my lights with you.

Our Christmas lights

Miss 3’s Daycare Amazes Me!

My Little Miss 3 attends daycare three days a week as I work part-time.  She has only been attending this daycare centre since February.  The one she was attending prior was pitiful (but that’s a whole other story).  When we first went there, I noticed they had 3 chickens in a pen in the corner.  I later found out that the kids take turns in going in and feeding the chickens and collecting the eggs.  The centre provides all the food for the kids (I don’t have to send anything along.  YAY!  Makes things easier for me) and they use the eggs in their cooking.

As time went on, I began to notice more and more things the centre was doing.  A few months ago, they started a herb garden, they have heaps of plants in pots all around the place and yesterday I noticed a new dwarf orange tree.  The kids help the teachers to water the plants everyday and they absolutely love it.  I have seen arguments over who is going to help Miss Maggie water the plants today.

Yesterday all the kids in Miss 3’s class planted their own seeds in a pot.  Miss 3 was very excited to show me her pot with her name on it.  I can’t wait to see how excited she will be when her seeds sprout. Miss 3 is very into gardening as we have been doing a lot at home lately.

Yesterday when I picked up Miss 3 I also noticed a worm farm sitting in one of the gardens.  It’s in an area where the kids can’t access so no worries about little hands getting in there to play.  I’m not sure how involved the kids are with feeding the worm farm but I suspect the might be allowed to put the food in there under supervision.

I am so so happy that what I teach Miss 3 at home about environmentally friendly/self-sustainable living is also being taught at daycare.  It makes me so happy to know that she is learning all this from such a young age.  Well done daycare!.

Sweet Potatos are in

Sweet potatoes are apparently really easy to grow in a tropical climate, hence the reason that this is the first vegetable I am attempting to grow.  That and the fact that it’s one of the only vegetables you can grow in North Queensland through summer.

I’ve had a sweet potato sitting on my bench in some water for a few weeks now and it had grown some nice slips so I decided it was time to plant them in the garden.  The slips are the shoots with the leaves on them and this is what is planted in the garden.

Sweet potato with slips

The slips are removed from the sweet potato by pulling them down in the opposite direction to what they are growing.  Before planting in the ground the leaves from the lower part of the slip need to be removed (do not remove and roots that may have started growing).  Once in the ground, two or three potatoes will grow from each leaf node (the spots where the leaves have been removed)

A slip that has been removed from the sweet potato

Miss 3 digging holes for the slips

Miss 3 planting the slips

Watering the slips

In four to six months time we should be able to harvest our sweet potatoes….

The Sun is Shining

I’ve been nominated for a sunshine award……..

I was very humbled yesterday to find out that my very good friend the Rabid Little Hippy had nominated me for a Sunshine Award.  Yesterday I was feeling a little low, so to read Rabid’s latest blog post nominating me for a Sunshine Award really made my day.

Here are my answers to the questions:

1. Who is your favorite philosopher? I don’t really have one although I have been inspired by a few Mahatma Ghandi quotes

2. What is your favorite number?  definitely 7.

3. What is your favorite animal? I absolutely love dolphins.  I am amazed by their grace and the way they interact with humans.

4. What are your Facebook and Twitter? No twitter account.  Facebook is http://www.facebook.com/thetropicalhippy

5. What is your favorite time of day? Anytime of the day where I have 5 mins to myself

6. What was your favourite holiday? Would have to be the 8 weeks my husband and I spent traveling through Europe and Egypt

7. What is your favorite physical activity? I would have to say going to the gym

8. What is your favorite non-alcoholic drink? that one is my little secret

9. What is your favorite flower? Tulips

10. What is your passion? enjoying life with my family
And now for my nominations……

Rabid Little Hippy – of course I am going to renominate my very good friend Rabid, for without her I would not have even started my journey to environmentally friendly living.  She has inspired me more than she will ever realise.

My Life with Snotface – This blogger is not only my sister-in-law, she is the most honest person I know.  Her blog is about juggling life as a fulltime working mum, with a four year old son.

The Organised Housewife – she is….well….extremely organised.  She is a mum to 3 kids and blogs to help inspire and motivate you to have an organised, clean and clutter free home.  She has definately given me the motivation to organise and declutter my home.

I really don’t follow that many blogs so I’ve picked my top three and I’m going to leave it at that.

Happy Sunshiney Days

Some things of interest

I was trolling Facebook this morning and I found some interesting things that I thought I would share because I know that some of my followers don’t have Facebook accounts.

The first is a Christmas one.  Christmas is fast approaching.  Lots of people tend to go overboard when it comes to buying kids Christmas presents.  I have never really been one to go too over the top when it comes to buying presents for my daughter and niece’s and nephew’s but there are some family members that do.  I found this pic on Facebook this morning and I think it’s an excellent philosophy to use when buying presents.  I know that most of my family have already bought presents for this Christmas but I am going to suggest that we all use ‘The Four Gift Rule’ when purchasing presents for next Christmas.

The other thing I found that I really wanted to share is this graphic on the percentage of genetically modified crops that each country produces.  Australia is down there as one of the lowest but when I saw the USA’s percentage I was shocked.  What do you think?

A Random Pawpaw

We were down in the garden the other day when hubby pointed out to me that there was a pawpaw tree growing in the garden.   This pawpaw tree was not planted by us and is in a part of the garden that has not been prepared for planting.  In fact the soil that it’s growing is actually from underneath a concrete slab that we had removed and replaced underneath our house a while back.  Actually I don’t even think it’s soil.  It looks more like clay. Once hubby pointed out this random pawpaw growing our garden, I’m instantly thinking this is excellent, we can transplant it into some better soil and we’ll be growing our own pawpaws.

Thanks to an awesome website that I frequent often, Tropical Permaculture, I was able to find out all I needed to know about growing pawpaws.  The good thing is that pawpaws are quick to grow fruit and fruit all year round.  They grow well in a frost free climate and enjoy lots of sunlight and water.  Perfect for a hot tropical climate like North Queensland.

Pawpaws can be male, female or bisexual.  Males don’t grow fruit however they are required for pollination.  So in order to actually grow pawpaws, you need a female and a male plant.  My first bit of bad news – I only have one plant.  The other thing is, they don’t transplant well, so moving it to another part of the garden is really not a good option.

I’m still puzzled as to how the pawpaw tree came to grow in my garden and as it’s not likely to grow fruit, I’m just going to enjoy watching it grow.

A random pawpaw tree in our garden

A little something about Christmas

Since Christmas is less than 2 months away, this is just a little something that I wanted to share with my fans and give you something to think about.

My first major challenge….

Recently we upgraded from a queen bed to a king bed.  Finding bed linen that is eco friendly has proven to be a major challenge.  Obviously, my first step was to jump on google and see what I could find.  I was very excited about the first website I came across. They had an Eco-friendly range.  Awesome!  This is exactly what I’m looking for.  Further investigation proves me wrong though.  Their eco-friendly range is made from bamboo, ingeo natural fibres and tencel.

Bamboo

At first bamboo seems like an excellent option.  It grows naturally without assistance from man.  It is one of the fastest growing plants in the world reaching maturity in about three to four years so it’s easily renewable.  It is also excellent for allergy suffers.  The downside is that because the fibres of bamboo are so small, they can not be naturally turned into yarn.  The only way to turn bamboo into yarn is through the use of chemicals.  So that rules out bamboo.

Ingeo natural fibres

Ingeo man-made fibres are derived from renewable materials such as corn. Ingeo can apparently be easily reproduced with little impact on the environment.  Thanks to wikipedia i found this description of how ingeo is made:

The process to create Ingeo makes use of the carbon stored in plants by photosynthesis in the form of dextrose sugar. The carbon and other elements in these sugars are then used to make a bio-polymer through a process of fermentation and separation.  The resulting resin, called ingeo biopolymer can then be extruded for use in textile applications.

Tencel

Tencel is claimed to be a new 100% organic fibre that is made from natural wood cellulose.  It is also 100% biodegradable.  To produce tencel, hardwood logs a chipped and chemically treated to create a pulp which is used to make fibres.  Not really sure how this constitutes 100% organic though.

The main problem with both Tencel and Ingeo is that they are produced by a petrochemical company.  So even if in fact they are eco friendly (which is questionable when you consider the info above), the money spent on these products goes straight to a company that produces petrochemicals, which to me defeats the purpose of buying them.

Wool

It was suggested to me by my good friend The Rabid Little Hippy to consider wool.  I wasn’t overly sure that wool would be suitable given the hot climate that I live in and the fact that even in winter the overnight temperature rarely drops below 15 degrees.  However, after some research, it appears that wool might be an option.  I have found a company called Aussie Wool Quilts who are producers of Australian made, chemical free wool bedding.  They use wool produced on their own farm and source some wool from nearby farms, but all wool used is produced organically. They also make quilts in different thicknesses to suit different climates, so I would be able to get a light weight one to suit this climate.  However, after emailing them to find out what the outer layer of the quilt is, I have discovered that it is non-organic cotton from China.  Although they did tell me that they make organic products for another company called Blessed Earth.  The fabric they use for Blessed Earth is certified bio-dynamic, but it is sourced from India.  It does however carry Fair Trade Certification.

I have discovered though that there is always a tradeoff to be made when it comes to Eco-friendliness. I’m thinking at this stage that I will be going with the Blessed Earth option because at least i know that the wool is grown in Australia under organic conditions and the cotton fabric, while sourced from India does carry a fair trade certification and is certified bio-dynamic.  I realise there are carbon miles involved in getting the products here but that is the tradeoff.  It seems near impossible to source a product that is made in Australia, is bio-dynamic and doesn’t incur carbon miles.