the ethicurean French gauze produce bag special

If you're not a fan on facebook of the ethicurean, hop on over for a squiz on our early Christmas special! Buy any ethicurean set and get 2 French gauze bags free. Buy two sets and get 4 free...etc. Perfect pressies for the hard to buy for or the eco-conscious. Special ends midnight tonight. Plastic free, practical stocking stuffers anyone?

The Container challenge

Remember this post from last year (or was it the year before?). And this? The challenge still stands.
I've been really fascinated going through my blog posts- a retrospective of my own- and in looking where I have been on our journey to minimise consumption, I am so encouraged by the number of people I see and hear about around the place who seem to be really interested in reducing packaging and consuming unnecessary plastics.  This post last year was one of the most popular and I have really noticed an increase in the number of people using these toothbrushes which is just fantastic.

My latest 'Stretch It' success has been the introduction of paper wrapped local biodynamic bulk butter from the Central Market here in Adelaide into our weekly shop.  Next on the list for Chez Pan is getting organised about bulk fresh rice noodle and tofu from the Asian shop in the market. These plastic packages keep appearing!

Haiku Friday

is Google involved?
medieval meets modern
qrcode? dunno.

crazy busy

life is that and I have been banging on about it for a while. It probably has been for the last 12 months ( or more) just ...crazy busy! No time to stop and smell the roses. Not cool for someone who believes in 'slow'. I even had to remove my blog tag line as a felt such a fraud. A Slow family? pffft! Since we fully embraced  'green', as a family approach, we have never been busier , as individuals and as a family. For The Bloke its been not only looking after an ecological house and two acres of woodland and forest and running for political positions at both State and local level and numerous community ventures plus being a stay home dad, and for me being a worker and involved in two 'green' start ups,  work , a PhD to finish as well as volunteering and both of us running a home with three kids and doing everything that we can from scratch..well... slow it aint!

However, blogland takes care of itself and not having much energy to be creative on this front, it has interested me to see seasonal changes in visiting patterns to this here wee blog. It's been the second year I have noticed it and I love seeing what I write have some meaning for others.
My top hits on this blog right now are driven by Northern Hemisphere visitors who are having seasonal issues with certain produce; my crabapple verjus post, making tea from camellia japonica (top ever hit post) , spiced pear paste post, rhubarb champagne post, mushroom duxelle post (yummo) and Jaspers birth story ( not seasonal I know!) and tomato tee pees (local and seasonal and my only follow up advice is to make the teepee height higher than you think is necessary) and onion weed pasta sauce ( yeah, this was never going to be a high end food blog) .
Go figure.

bio-char

I found this lovely vision at the bottom of our garden. It was the last day of the school holidays for B2; she's still in her PJ's. Relaxed. The Bloke is stoking up the bio-char pit. Our little green valley was full of smoke and the Bean was endearingly hugging his Big Sis. Both watching the bio-char process with interest. I love how they are leaning into each other. I stood a while, just watching. Our thoughts on an addition to the family bringing our two sides together in living proof in red gumboots..

A small selection of the sticks and twigs that The Bloke collects through the year and piles neatly were ready by the end of the day, burnt down into porous, chalky pieces. This days burn has  been incorporated into the vege patches, ready to rejuvenate and open up the heavy clay. The difference is noticeable already.

Haiku Friday

It draws like a gun.
Point.Shoot. The moment is caught,
for all to witness.

Haiku Friday

sitting, my bum aches
working solid, my mind aches
time for a Haiku!

Cruel irony

I was taking some pics for another 'favourite things' post today. I 'shot' this and on review couldn't believe I had missed the awful irony.

Haiku Friday

breathe. take it all in
sometimes it's chaos
life is a highway