Oh hello there garden wrecker.

I thought I’d let the girls out to have a scratch about/weed the garden while I pottered in the greenhouse – sowing lots of seeds (although not as many as previous years) and potting on some other stuff:

Within minutes though, those surviving swiss chard plants were reduced to this:

Some of the other self-seeded edibles in the lower bit of the garden were also munched, and my daffodils were duly stomped on:

She was happy destroying them until she realised there were strawberry plants in the trough underneath that.

You can see her going “ooh! they’ll be fun to stomp!”. I don’t mind about the daffodils – which weren’t up to much anyway – or the general mess they cause flicking top soil everywhere but I shooed her off the strawberries. That hen, Ginger, then went over to investigate what Ms Mauve was up to:

Quietly eating bittercress. I looked away for a second and heard a wing-flapping kerfuffle:

Ginger had tried to jump onto a big soil filled plant tub but it had fallen over. She, of course, took the opportunity to have a scratch through it for anything tasty before going off to cause chaos elsewhere. Elsewhere eventually turned out to be next-door-but-one’s garden with her fellow Black Rock partner in crime, Blacksy — and they’re the two that don’t like being picked up so I had to do comedy cross-garden chicken chasing to get them back home.

Some of them are more darling though. I was sowing the last of my tomatoes (late, I know) in the greenhouse when I heard a quiet little “can I come in?” buck-buck.

Little Blue jumped into the greenhouse and had a good look around – under the staging, on the staging, pecking at old growbags etc – all the while seemingly asking me questions: “is this your coop? where are the roost bars? where are the nest boxes? can I eat those seeds?” Very sweet. (And no, she couldn’t.)

Related posts:

• Growing vegetables for chickens
• Supplementing our chickens’ feed with free greens?
• Chickens playing out in the garden

Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Sorry, got a bit overexcited there, I do like meeting new people. Would you like me to bring you a shoe? Because I can go and get one if you like? Here! Here’s a shoe. I hope you like it. It’s my shoe. Don’t try to take my shoe! I like shoes!

Ok, ok, I’ll put the shoe down and start telling you what you want to hear. I’m not quite sure what the female feedy-huggy one has asked of me because I am a dog but I’ll try my best and will try very hard not to randomly woof. Although I am told I enunciate my woof splendidly, with a proper “wuh” at the beginning and everything. Wuh-oof.

So, yes, I have lived here for two years now and I think I lead a pretty green & frugal life. Well, a white-and-brown frugal life.

I grow my own fur so I don’t need clothes – 12 items in ’11? Pff! I had less that 12 items of clothing in 11 years! – and my fur can be composted when I don’t need it any more. I am also more than happy to snuggle underneath a duvet or a blanket too for extra warmth, no need for gas-guzzling central heating.

I do not – NOT!NOT!NOT! – like going in the car because they are expensive and noisy and sometimes involve journeys to the vets which are expensive, noisy and sometimes involve injections. If I had my way the tail-less ones would get rid of the car and we’d just walk everywhere we needed to go. Because the only place we need to go is the woods, right? Definitely NOT the vets, just the woods.

I like the woods. They are at the bottom of my garden. Walking in the woods is my favourite hobby and it makes me happy that we go there every day. If I wasn’t such a scaredy dog, I’d probably run around the woods on my own all day, making sure I’m instantly aware of any changes in smells and to check that those squirrels aren’t up to anything. Those squirrels are always up to something. That’s why they need barking at. “What are you up to, squirrels?” I say with one single well-enunciated woof. They know I’m onto them, that’s why they run.

I like eating things I find in the woods. Once I found a tuna sandwich. That was a good day. I carried it for about a minute to really savour it before I ate it. It was good. Mostly I just eat green things. My favourite green things are those sticky bud things which the curly haired one calls “cleavers” but I also like some bits of grass. The curly-haired one calls this “foraging” and says it’s a green and frugal thing but I just think of it as walking snack time. The curly-haired one is good and puts green things in pots for me to snack on in the garden too. They’re at dog-mouth height so they must be for me.

Inside the house, I am the good one. I’m the one that helps reduce food waste by SELFLESSLY cleaning up any scraps of food that drop on the floor, any food the cats might leave, and any eggs that get dropped or cracked. It has been said by a certain curly-haired person who shall remain nameless (because I don’t understand the concept of names really) that I sometimes cause the eggs to get broken by nudging them off a table or trying to trip up one of the humans when they’re carrying them up from the chickens but THAT IS DOWNRIGHT LIES. I am a good dog, I tell you.

Speaking of the chickens, they’re fascinating, aren’t they? Their home smells of such amazing things, as do their bottoms. I must admit that I did try to eat them at first (the whole chickens, not just their bottoms) but now I am just happy to watch them. Watch them and sniff them. Mmm, sniffing.

I like sniffing the cats too and they generally sniff back although I think their “eeeuggh!” faces are at least sometimes uncalled for. I do have soaks in the stream as often as I’m allowed so in my humble opinion, I’m very very clean and delightfully fragrant. And the curly one makes me have showers inside the bathroom rain box sometimes too. I prefer showers to baths, which I hear is a green thing: I like that they are shorter and don’t use as much water and that sometimes I can lick the water from the water thing. And after I’ve had a shower and am nice and clean, I help the two-legs clean the bathroom floor by wriggling on every single bit of it. No need for chemical cleaning gunk or even a mop. I’m such a helpful doggy.

I am also good at helping sort the rubbish. They sort it into “recycling”, “compost” and “rubbish” but they seem to miss that a lot of the so-called “rubbish” is actually perfectly reusable. No, I don’t mean reusable … what do I mean? Oh yes, chewable. I am very good at taking things out of the office or living room bins and “reusing” them into little tiny pieces. Sometimes it takes ages for the feedy-huggy people to get the picture: they put the perfectly chewable thing in the bin, I take it out again, they put it in again, I take it out again, they put it in again … I mean squirrels learn faster than these people. Wait… squirrels can learn things? Then they might get the better of me with their scheming ways! Oh no! I should go woof at them to make them forget!

To celebrate her two year anniversary with us, I made her a party hat – with brown-paper spaniel ears.

Some bribing with treats may have been necessary to get her to wear it.

Quite a lot of bribery ;)

Related posts:

• Are you still as frugal and green when you’re away from home?
• Growing salad leaves – frugal, organic & green
• Six things that have helped me live a simple, frugal life in 2011

“Why there no role for chicken in play? I could even play duck or turkey, I has range.”

“Well, if not starring role, how about backstage? I helps with the page markers.”

“Mmm, neon is my favourite flavour.”

(In related news, today has been a lovely day and I sat out in the garden to do some non-computer work & have a cup of tea. It wasn’t quite warm enough really but it was still very nice. Hurrah for spring-like days!)

Related posts:

• Another new shelter for the chickens

Things I need to do ASAP:

• Plant the six soft fruit bushes I bought from Aldi just before I got ill. Last year’s Aldi bushes are doing well so I got the same again: two blackcurrant, two redcurrant & two raspberry. The raspberry bushes will be planted alongside the ones from last year but not sure about the others – I’m wondering if it will make them cry if I just put them in tubs this year? Speaking of which…
• Transplant the honeyberry bushes. They were in containers last year but I think they’ll stretch their legs further if I can put them in a bed instead. Perhaps I should take this as a lesson for the other berry bushes & find somewhere for them now!
• Transplant existing strawberries (in case they survive being dog-nibbled) and get some more for a June-ish glut. The existing strawberry plants are a season-long variety which is good in many ways but bad for jam-making. I want jam.
• Wonder if I’ve still got time/space to get another small cherry tree in the ground this winter. Or get a container-sized one at least.
• Freshen up all the beds/big containers. Some of them just need topping up with compost, others are going to get a “mature” chicken poo boost.
• Decide what veg I’m going to grow this year. Usually an early-January job but since January didn’t happen here this there, I still need to get organised. There are a few more things joining potatoes on my “no, don’t grow” list this year, including peppers and leeks, but I’m not sure what I do want to grow — I better decide soon because some things need sowing in a few weeks.
• Conduct a roll call to see what plants we’ve already got. I suspect this should happen before the latter. I’m particularly thinking about herbs and other stuff that will/should have survived the winter. I’m hoping to make a decent herb bed this year, one way or another, so it’ll be good to know what’s already available.
• Decide whether or not we’re going to try hatching eggs this year – and if so, decide what type of eggs to buy. This is a conditional thing – we’ll only do it if one of the chickens goes seriously broody. Ginger spent half of 2011 broody – if she does the same this year, she can, essentially, hatch her own replacements. I want to make the decision before she goes broody though because we’ll have to rush to buy eggs/get a broody coop built in good time so I’d rather have a plan ready before then.
• Clean out the greenhouse. Naughty me left it in a bit of a state last winter – it needs clearing, cleaning and airing before I can start to use it again for this year.
• Plant out the spent forced hyacinth bulbs. datacreate & Hazel have given me hope that these might regrow again in the garden next year. I’m going to plant them near the cherry tree & the existing fruit bushes as I know those beds are less likely to be disturbed by my digging this year.

What’s on your to-do list for your garden/allotment this week?

Related posts:

• Falling short – empty spaces in the garden, boo
• Lessons from our garden so far
• First courgettes from the garden

Rachel‘s year without ‘poo – great to hear about her experience and the tricks she’s picked up/developed. Her water-only hair looks fab too.

Ilona the MeanQueen got me thinking about money cushions/long-term savings. Every personal finance blog/book I read insists on people building up long term savings. But Ilona has no intention of leaving a nest egg behind. As I say in her comment section, we try for a balance – in our early 30s, we’re less likely to have a state pension waiting for us or, at this rate, a NHS to look after us, so long term savings will be important. But at the same time, I’ve now essentially downshifted twice – halving my income each time so vastly reducing the amount I can put into savings – because no amount of long-term savings are worth being that miserable over. Anyway, thought provoking/different angle post.

I got a lot of my fluff reading from Cracked.com – an often geeky, even more often rude humour site – but they do have some more poignant articles too — albeit ones still littered with swears and poo jokes. If that sort of thing doesn’t offend you, then I’d recommend reading this recent one on bad lifelong habits from living in poverty.

The Steel Kitten is on a mission – and put together a very thought provoking blog post on realising your dream — both in the sense of accomplishing it but more importantly figuring out what it is in the first place!

Jono of Real Men Sow has written a great summary post about the things to consider when buying seeds for this growing season – things he learnt from tracking the money savings from his growing last year.

UPDATE: I meant to include this on my list too: Paved with Good Intentions. It is a brief article but touching on the idea that when people reduce the energy consumption of their homes, they may be tempted to take the money they save on their energy bills and use it in another way that actually uses more energy over all – possibly good for the economy but probably bad for the environment. I’ve been thinking about this regarding frugal living too but haven’t finalised my thoughts on it yet. Interesting idea though.

Have you read any interesting blog posts/articles online recently? If so, do share – I’m not up to full fighting strength yet so need more input :)

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One – COLD!

How can I start with anything other than a comment about the cold weather? I do like cold days – well, cold dry days like now, not cold wet ones – so I’m not complaining. The sun is shining – albeit weakly – and the sky is blue. I like wrapping up warm and walking on frozen mud while we’re out with Lily. However, we have timed all this rather badly – the replastering we’re having done (in the living room, kitchen & downstairs hallway) means we’re down two key radiators & a wood burning stove. Chilly!

Two – chilly chickens

Like last time it was chilly for a couple of days, the chickens don’t seem to be too bothered about the cold. I got a bwarky rant this morning – probably complaining about their water being solid and it being harder to scratch through the chippings because they’ve got a hard layer on top – but otherwise they’re doing fine. Earlier this week we had our first six egg (from six girls – a 100% lay rate) day since the beginning of September — and we’ve had another two six egg days since then. I wasn’t expecting a glut so early in the year!

Three – the 2012 growing season starts here (very soon)

I never really got over my growing “meh”ness from last summer but over the last week, as more people have been talking about their early sowings or plans for the year, I’ve started to form a few plans of my own. I had thought about getting another fruit tree or two in the ground this winter but I’m not sure that’s going to happen. I would like to get some more soft fruit bushes in though – some more red berries since the four blackcurrants look like they’ll be fine by themselves – probably following Tanya at Lovely Greens down the Wilkinsons cheap bush path as the ones from last year have grown well. I also want some more strawberries as half of last year’s lot are looking rather pathetic/dead. I must resist the rhubarb crown temptation though – everyone is always talking about how prolific it is at such an otherwise low-producing time of year but we don’t actually like rhubarb. It doesn’t matter how much it grows if we don’t want to eat it.

I am sticking to my “no potatoes” plan so there is nothing to chit but I think I’ll have to dig the heated propagator out of the garage soon to get started on tomatoes and what not.

Four – bacon progress

My bacon looks to be doing well. I am somewhat regretting starting it in a week when I don’t have good access to the kitchen – and also have sore/micro-cut hands so I’m not enjoying the salt rubs at all! But on the other hand, at least I’ve got it started and starting something for the first time is often such a big hurdle for me. This batch will be just about done in its cure this weekend then I’m going to look into the fridge hanging idea that PipneyJane mentioned the other day. I can’t wait to try it though :)

Five – and it’s the weekend

It’s the weekend, hurrah! We have nothing special planned – John was supposed to be away at a conference but is still having to take things easy with his bad back – but I am determined to start cleaning the plaster dust from EVERYWHERE in the house. Those who know me in person will know that I am never determined to clean anywhere: this should show how much dust there is around our house at the moment.

As well as that and the usual stuff that happens at weekends, I’m going to try to get started on my 2012 goals – I need to get going on the generating an extra £2012 in 2012 goal and the “make something cheaper, greener or simpler for us each month” one too. The problem with the latter is that nothing is screaming to be changed right now – so I’ll have to both find something and make it cheaper/greener/simpler. It’s very possible that the latter will be easier than the former!

Do you like – or hate – the cold weather? Have you made any growing plans for this year – or even started sowing? What are you up to this weekend? And finally, have you made anything cheaper, greener or simpler for your household recently? Yes, I just want to steal your ideas with the last question ;)

Related posts:

• A few things from the week
• Things from yesterday and today
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So let’s just sweep the last 31 days under the carpet and start of the 11 month long year of 2012 today! Happy New Year! :D

For the past few years, I’ve set myself some goals for the year – 10 in 2010, 11 (+ some smaller ones) in 2011 – but after failing to meet so many of them, I’m going for fewer annual goals in 2012 but will set myself more monthly ones, when the fancy takes me (or possibly, I’ll get you guys to set them for me…!).

These are my six goals for the year though:

1. Make £2012 in “side money”

I signed up for this challenge on MoneySavingExpert. As I’ve been self-employed doing a whole variety of things since 2006, it’s hard for me to define “side money” but I think I’ve got an idea that works for me now. I’ll write more about my rationale at a later date but basically I’m thinking of it as new income streams money, whatever those things are. If it’s a success this year and I repeat in 2013, this year’s “side money” will just become part of my usual income, and I’ll have to make an additional £2013 in 2013 from more new stuff. Doing this in 11 months rather than 12 will be a challenge (£182 a month rather than £168) – but frankly, doing it in 12 months felt like it was going to be a challenge so an extra few more quid a month shouldn’t be a big deal. I will be asking for advice about this one quite a lot!

2. Each month, find a way to make one thing in our lives more frugal, simpler or greener.

A bit of a wide reaching one but I like making small, sustainable changes.

3. Visit all the parks and woodland around Bradford

Not specifically a frugal/simple living one but I guess it’s free, outdoor entertainment that might result in some foraging fun so maybe it is more frugal/simple living than I’d originally thought!

4. Produce something creative each week

I’d like these things to be often either practical or, eventually, sellable (to contribute to the £2012 thing) but I’d rather be doing for-the-sake-of-it creative stuff than nothing at all.

5. Finish and polish my 2011 NaNoWriMo story and finish another developed written project

I’ve been naughty – getting distracted by other stuff – and not finish-finished my 2011 NaNoWriMo story yet. It stands at around 125k so very nearly there. Must. Push. Through. To. End.

I’d also like to write & finish something else – possibly another NaNoWriMo style thing because I had a lot of fun doing that.

6. Keep a list of all the books I read (or re-read) in 2012 – and try to review them all (even if only a tweet)

Again, not particularly a frugal/simple living one but a good proportion of the books I read do have simple living type themes, one way or another, and I’m hoping I use the libraries more in 2012 too so again, some vague overlap.

What are your goals for this year? I bet you’ve all been super organised and already blogged them – if so, please do leave a link in case I’ve missed your list :)

Related posts:

• October mini-goals
• Buy less than 12 items of clothing in 2011 challenge – end of year update
• Mini goals for June

I finally started my first load of homemade bacon last night. I got my bacon on.

I’ve been meaning to start a load for a couple of months but things kept happening and I didn’t do it. Then on Sunday, we had the best bacon we’ve eaten in a long, long, long time on Sunday (from the excellent Swillington Farm) – I doubt ours will compared but my desire for perfectly preserved pink pork products is strong enough to force me to give it a go. Conveniently our monthly meatbox from Swillington also contained a small slab of belly pork – about 750g/1.5lbs – so streaky here we come :)

(Mmm, soon-to-be streaky!)

I spent a lot of time looking at different cure recipes and was surprised by how many recipes missed out vital bits of information — carefully detailing how much of each thing to use in the cure but then missing out the weight of the meat (300g? 3000g?) — but I think I figured out the required ratios in the end. I’ll hold off posting anything about my cure now until we’ve tasted the finished product – I will say though that I’m reluctant to use saltpetre and haven’t used it this time around. I’m quite glad we’re only using a small piece of pork as I suspect the cure will need some tweaking, for example, there seems to be a lot of coriander seeds on the meat, even though they make up a tiny percentage of the cure mix and I forgot to include pepper, which had been in my original plan. This post is more for me so I can remember what I did for next time :)

(I did grind the salt up further after I took these pictures.)

What I did: I mixed my cure (NB FutureLouisa: the recipe is in your blue scrap paper notebook), scored the rind the opposite way to the existing scores, then massaged most of the dry cure into the meat. I plopped it into a conveniently correct-sized container, skin down, and within a few hours, liquid had already started leaking out. This evening – and every day for the next five-ish days, I’m going to pour off the liquid and apply more rub (if needed). Then after that, I’ll rinse off any excess cure, pat it dry, then you’re supposed to leave it to hang but I think we’ll probably end up going down the route which sees it wrapped and rested in the fridge. (In the future, I want to try wet-curing & cold-smoking too – but I’ll wait until I’ve finally got around to building another smoker cabinet.)

We’ll just have to see how it turns out!

(Apologies for the bad lighting/mega-shadows in the pictures – we’ve had our normal kitchen lights taken down so the plasterer can reboard and skim the ceiling in there, and have two nasty, very yellow bulbs on wires in their place. Given the disarray, it’s probably not the best time to try an culinary experiment but nevermind!)

Have you made/do you make your own bacon? If so, have you got any tips/advice for my next few days or for my cure next time?

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Firstly, Clare of Three Beautiful Things asked:

Do you have any soap cutting tips, please? I’ve just bought a large block and don’t want it to crumble when I slice it.

I couldn’t help with this one – my soap is still a little soft when I cut it so crumbling isn’t an issue. When my first batch was a bit harder, it did crumble a bit under the knife but I just accepted the rough edged soap bars and collected the crumbles for use as laundry/household soap. Any advice to avoid the crumbles in the first place though?

@AlisonJFews replied:

Don’t know about cutting it, but need a really good soap supplies website. With the one I chose, you had to spend £25 + a time!

And again, I couldn’t help! The soap I’ve made has always been from supermarket supplies and I’ve used misc things as moulds so I’ve not had to use any soap making supplies websites for specialist oils, fats or what-have-you.

For people like me who like to use what’s easily on hand, Sharon of SmithyCraft sent us this link for working out how much lye to use – thanks Sharon.

Has anyone else got any advice/ideas for the other questions?

(By the way, this has reminded me that I’ve been sent a soapmaking ebook to read and review – I’ll get that done this week!)

Related posts:

• Soap making book reviews: Soapmaking by Sarah Ade and The Natural Soap Book by Susan Miller Cavitch
• Using our 100% vegetable oil soap
• Ten things to do while waiting forever for soap to trace

(John came across the article on a geeky news-sharing site and the discussion on there is more interesting than the comments on the blog itself – albeit a lot more longwinded/bitchy now than when I first looked at it last week.)

There are a few people pointing out that he’s not got 15 things – one thing is a “toiletry kit” and he also says he has “couple things not on the list – like socks and underwear – that [he] can easily replace and could not resell for any value” but the exact number is unimportant really because the main point is that, as he says, he’s gone from an overconsumer to a extreme minimalist, who spends his days “traveling, living a pretty simple life”.

What stood out from his list of things (as it stood in May last year) is how nearly everything is listed by brand: from his “Arc’teryx Miura 30 backpack” and “NAU shirt” to his “iPhone 3GS” and “Macbook Air”. Perhaps he’s making a point about having few good quality items (I don’t know if that backpack and shirt are good quality but the backpack costs £120 and the cotton shirts £75+) and just because you’re minimalist doesn’t mean you have to be frugal, but it smacks to me of brand fetishism. (He posted an update last week after the new round of attention and now has 39 things – his phone has been upgraded, we know the make of his new laptop bag and the £75+ shirt is no more.)

Other people on geeky discussion board point out that by while he doesn’t own as much stuff – like pans & cutlery, furniture or bedsheets – as most of us do, he’s using his money and/or goodwill to temporarily rent those things (at restaurants or hotels) – or outsourcing the renting/ownership of those things to friends he’s staying with. A few years ago, a friend of ours was living in a fully furnished rented flat – which included everything from his bed to the cutlery in the kitchen drawers: he didn’t technically own that stuff but he was able to make full use of it, much like this guy making full use of his friends’ sofas and household appliances. I’m also reminded about our friend of a friend who throws his change in the bin — he also used to buy CDs, rip them to his laptop then throw them in the bin too: he still “owned” the music just not the physical medium.

There are obviously lots of definition arguments too about what is minimalism & what is a simple life and I guess I do have to give the guy some props for actually changing his life around, but it seems to me that his life still seems as defined by “stuff” as it was back in the day. It also reminds me of what I’ve said before about people going extreme to compensate for previous behaviour – the hair shirt to atone for your sins – which I personally don’t think is a good idea.

Oh I didn’t mean to spend so much time waffling and being negative! I just wanted to introduce the article to you guys, to see what you thought about it. I know a lot of people who read this blog are frugal, just-in-case hoarders but also have a lot of stuff to allow off-grid/”self-sufficient” activities (even just less extreme stuff like making our own food from scratch), so in many ways, we’re the opposite of Mr 15 Things while still living “pretty simple lives” — and that’s why I’m especially interested in what you have to say!

Have you heard about this guy or anyone else living an “extreme minimalist” lifestyle? What do you think about it? Do you think they serve as inspiring examples for the rest of us clutterers?

Related posts:

• Extreme frugality – a good thing or a bad thing?