inner pickle

bummer of a confession

If you drop in here, you might get the impression I'm all down with the homesteading. Got a bit of a garden, do a bit of cooking, know my way round a sewing machine. Pretty green. The baby appears to have an amber necklace on. Buddhist tendencies, hippy inclination.

And I have a guilty secret. Disposable nappies. 

Not just now, for the third babe. *Cough*. All three.

You know, when we were having Henry, I canvassed the options, as you do. I asked the greenest person I knew (my sister in law) what she thought. I read up a bit. And I took the road most travelled, and went with disposables. Usually eco disposables, but we're kinda clutching at straws there. 

It's always bothered me and I've occasionally made enquiries and talked to a few friends using cloth; always mad keen advocates.

It was only when Ivy came down with a terrible rash this week that I remembered Tilly had reacted to the same nappies (Ivy is currently in Huggies.) Turns out Ivy's rash is viral (poor wee thing) and nothing to do with the nappies, but in the meantime I had poked around my linen cupboard and found a stack of terry cloth nappies I use for everything else other than on bottoms. 

 

I found some safety pins and two pairs of 1970s plastic pants that I bought at an op shop for 50c and we were away.

 

Hmmmm.

 

Yeah I think we might need the help of Youtube, Ives. I've stuffed that up. 

 

 

And with the help of Youtube I now know how to fold a good old fashioned terry nappy. And that apparently plastic pants have been superceded by nappy covers, which look like they might work a bit better. (I've just ordered a couple via eBay to try.) 

Notwithstanding the amateur-hour effort above, once I had her in a cloth nappy it felt really good. I like them, philosophically. 

And for heavens sake, my mother had quads in cloth nappies. I'm embarrassed to think one child might be too much work. 

And for the record, Adam and I agree on most things. This idea, he thinks, is completely insane. 

xxx

P.S. Tilly toilet trained at two and Ivy is starting to tell me if she's pooey. It's very late in the game, really. Better late than never?

the green man

I live in a dark house with a green man.

By this I mean it's not about turning off lights at our place when you leave a room, you gotta present a good reason to turn them on. 

Like I said, dark house, green man.

We have a water timer in the shower (a four-minute free timer from the Queensland state government. The kids love it.)

We're pretty typical really: we avoid plastic bags and we compost and recycle. We've got energy efficient light globes (not that they're ever bloody on anyway) and we avoid cleaning chemicals. (Avoided most ardently by me. Cleaning?)

It's a cliche but true: there's a natural cleaning solution for every chemical we've created. 

My favourite: the food-safe "spray and wipe". 

Dissolve a tablespoon of bicarb soda in hot water and add a cup of vinegar. Top up with cold water and there you have it. Fresh smelling cleaning spray. And if the kids put their vegemite toast on the table just after you've wiped it you don't need to worry about them ingesting a bunch of evil stuff. 

I've said it before, I am eternally grateful to my mother in law Jen for making Adam a cleaning dude. Long before Shannon Lush, this fella was mopping floors with hot water and eucalyptus oil. Marvellous man. 

One more chemical-free idea: make your own washing powder. Sound insane?

It's so damn quick and easy. And it works really well. 

I use Amanda's recipe:

2 cups finely grated soap

1 cup borax

1 cup washing soda (I use Lectric soda)

1 cup bicarb soda

I use about a third of a cup per wash (using a front loader).

I found Dr Bronner's here in Australia but it's a bit expensive to be grating up. I've used good old Lux flakes which worked well, and am currently grating up some Sunlight soap. 

Jen did about a hundred loads of washing for me when she was here for a week recently. She loved the homemade powder so I made up another batch to send back to Armidale. 

It doesn't really properly say thank you for my green man, but it's something.

xxx

one small change

{vegie scraps about to get a new lease} 

Inspired by Hip Mountain Mama's One Small Change Campaign I have decided to make some small green changes this year. 

If you've ever had a dog and now don't, you'll know that feeling of horrible waste every time you throw a beef or lamb bone in the bin. I've been getting that lately with vegetable peelings.

I grew up on a farm where the dogs got the bones, the chooks got the scraps, the tea leaves were always used as fertilizer and there was an organic compost over the back fence (i.e. the paddock in which fruit and vegetable scraps were tossed.)

We recycle here at home, of course, Sydney recycling is split into general rubbish, paper and plastic and green garden waste. Not bad. 

But the vegie scraps.

We had a wonderful compost going in Brisbane but we left it behind and never replaced it.

Just before Christmas we went and got a worm farm.

So my January project ('One small change' involves a project each month from January to April leading up to Earth Day on April 22) is more diligent recycling and building up our worm farm.

Tilly loves talking to the worms. She calls this their 'bed'. That mat on top is instead of dampened newspaper, to keep them moist and cool.

We go through quite a lot of fruit and veg peelings in this house and they are threatening to overtake the poor worms, even just a few days worth of scraps! So the kids and I went adventuring to Bunnings today to get some back up wrigglies...

  Bring on the organic fertiliser!

xxx