My Really Good Goals for 2011

Posted by louisa on Monday 3 January 2011 in meta | 10 comments

I have set myself a list of goals for the year ahead – written up on my personal blog because they’re not all simple/DIY living related.

I did the same last year and found it useful – even if I did pretty much mentally abandon some mid-year. The most useful ones that weren’t a specific tick-off-done goal but one’s that helped shape my whole life – for example, I had a goal of “make a meal entirely out of things I’ve grown, raised, caught or killed” and in order to achieve that, I grew veg & herbs, raised chickens for the eggs and foraged for wild food.

My list is very simple/DIY living heavy this year! Here are the relevant ones:

• Increase the food output from our garden and cook a meal using things I’ve grown/raised/caught/killed completely off-grid
• Learn how to successfully take and propagate cuttings from every applicable type of perennial plant/shrub in the house/garden
• Make a piece of furniture for the house (woodworking)
• Make an entire outfit (to include conquering sewing patterns)
• Go fishing in the North Sea
• Buy no more than 12 items of clothing across the year*
• Specific food makery and/or eatery (because if I did them all separately it would take up half the list)
• Bake at least once a week
• Grow a sourdough starter and make bread from it
• Make a hard cheese
• Try ten vegetables (or veggie wild foods) that I’ve not tried before
• Build a cold smoking cabinet, try cold smoking more stuff & try hot smoking too
• Participate more in the real world – engage more with our local community and meet some internet people in real life

(* I’m going to explain this more fully tomorrow)

There were a few things I also really, really want to try but I didn’t think warranted goal status on that limited list:

• Keep records to track our usage of consumables – I mean, I want to know how many toilet rolls we use in a month, how much soap, how long it takes for us to get through a 10kg bag of rice etc. I might record absolutely everything we use for a month or so, and use that hardcore exercise to decide what is worth tracking longer term
• Have regular “eat only from the pantry & garden” weeks in the spring/summer, probably once a month
• Have more conscious “no spend” periods – minimum fortnights, possibly months, throughout the year
• Find a solution to the dog poo problem – something more useful than a cork up Lily-dog’s bum. Probably a dedicated wormery.
Collect and store more rainwater for use on the garden – we can’t use the main gutter at the back for rainwater but could still collect off the greenhouse, from a gutter at the front and possibly off the extension area too. To be explored and implemented.
• Make my own soap – something that’s been nagging at me for a little while
• Make my own vinegar – for some reason, I have a really strong desire to make pineapple vinegar (probably the efficiency of using up the scraps)
• UPDATED TO ADD: Make conscious efforts to reduce food waste at home – probably a period of monitoring it closely to see what we throw out (which I’ll post on here) as well as better menu planning.

It seems like 2011 will be a busy one!

I’m hoping that the last goal – getting to know more people locally and meeting internet buddies in real life – will help me meet some of my other goals — I’d love to find mentors for some of my learning-new-skills goals. If you fancy mentoring me, let me know! :)

What have you got planned for 2011?

I’m not self-sufficient so what am I?

Posted by louisa on Thursday 30 September 2010 in meta | 0 comments

When I was trying to come up with a name for this blog, I spent a lot of time thinking about the different words and definitions for someone in my situation. The phrase I repeatedly kept coming back to was “self-sufficient” but that’s just wrong.

Now I know there are a few people who are truly self-sufficient and others striving for it, but that’s never going to be me. Lazy me, the me who likes the internet and chocolate, the me who lives in suburbia, the me who sees a huge value in community and the division of labour. To label myself as “aiming for self-sufficiency” seems hopelessly naive but also inaccurate – that’s not my goal.

I grow, I cook, I make and I try to live a sustainable & green life – and I’d like a way to summarise that neatly but don’t know how. Perhaps I’m over-focusing but words and labels are powerful – created and used by others if we don’t do it ourselves.

A lot of people use “simple living” but to me, it has almost negative ascetic connotations of personal deprivation/doing without and also seems a bit wrong for people who document their simple living adventures on blogs, via laptops and their internet connections. (I know the vast majority of people who live simple lives don’t do that, it’s just easier for me to find out about the ones who do.)

“The Good Life” related terms seem more positive on the face of it – but in the UK at least, there is a mocking element to it too — bad jumpers, experimental homemade wine and poo-powered cars. (An aside: I’ve noticed when talking to people about how veg crop or chickens, there has a shift in people saying “oh, just like the Good Life!” to “oh, you’re just like River Cottage”. So there’s maybe a term: we can say we’re cottagers … maybe not.)

My boyfriend John suggested something along the lines of “self-sustaining” but I worry it has many of the drawbacks of “self-sufficient”. I thought about “DIY living” since it suggests the practical element that is core to the lifestyle – but I suspect it might conjure up images of us being obsessed with wallpaper and coving.

What term do you use/prefer? Do you put the emphasis on one part of your outlook than another, for example, calling yourself a “microfarmer” or focusing on “green living” even though green=frugal, sustainable, growing your own etc.?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this!

(Photo by Patrick Hajzler