The Journey

I've just discovered this inspiring website..... The Journey. I particularly liked the Eastside Roots flic. Hope you find something here to inspire ;-)

See the light.....

If you live in the UK and you haven't heard about this already, please sign up for the Lighter Later campaign, it will give us more light for every day of the year (unless you are always an early bird) and just seems like such a logical step towards saving electriciy and opening ourselves up to a lighter future ........

PS please spread this beyond your green network and let everyone who ever has contact with you know about it Cheers

New Awakenings

Soooooooo it's been toooooo tooooooo long since I posted here and any of you who were reading me have probably disappeared off to do your own saving of the planet by now.... which is not such a bad thing. Anyhow, I'm back from a long cold winter (not that we can definitely count it as over in these parts, but I'm optimistic) and thinking about getting out onto the alottment, into the garden and starting the growing season off with a good amount of wonderful homemade compost and digging power.

I've been reading a great book called The Edible Garden (it's on my book list over there on the right) which pointed me in the direction of a fabulous website "Punk Rock Permaculture"..... lots about Haiti on it at the moment and if you dig into the archive you'll find loads of fascinating stuff. We're also considering doing some No Dig gardening in some builders bags we've managed to rescue from the garbage heap. Empty builders bags seem to be left around all over the place and they make great, cheap, low effort raised beds. There is a great website on no dig gardening here and a fab page on how to layer stuff to make it. When you're the mum or dad of a busy family this looks like the way to go to me.

I hope you're all having your own new awakenings and are fresh out of hibernation to start a new spring. Looking forward to keeping y'all up to date with my gardening endeavours. Ciao for now.

I got a stunning email from Friends of the Earth today identifying how they will effect the elections.... here's a link to their offering. It's so bad it looks like a joke. If I was going on this alone, I'd say the Earth has no Friends and is doomed. Thankfully I know better. Hmmmmm elections though, nowhere to turn if you're green in this country.

March resolution

OK, from now on, I'm going to post more regularly, my recent posting rate is really rather pathetic - a definite "could do better".

So much going on.....

2010 has started with much activity in our household. We're busy getting involved in our local Transition Town initiatives, looking out for our consumption and trying to keep to using at least 10% less in 2010, and at the same time getting as many other people involved in Saving the Planet.

There was a very interesting Analysis on Radio 4 the other day entitled "Are Environmentalists Bad for the Planet?". Particularly interesting in light of the fact that at our last Transition Town meeting we were discussing how to expand the network of interested people beyond the "Usual Suspects"..... I have had a suspicious feeling for a while that there is something about a lot of the people involved which puts others in the community off becoming involved. I'm hoping to start expanding the network via the local schools since I'm convinced that kids can help bring parents on board....

Anyhow, I hope everyone had a fabulous Christmas. Go Well. F

Reducing household waste

This article talks about an inspiring family who have reduced their waste to one bag a year! Pretty amazing. We seem to be doing comparitively well when you look at the state of the rest of our street. Over the Christmas period there have been no collections, exacerbated by the snow.... most people seem to have bags and bags overflowing their grey bins - so far ours is still contained. This is something I aim to improve on dramatically though in 2010. If we can only put our bin out once a month I'll be pleased..... and hopefully we'll do much better that that.