a house called nut and some eco stuff

A bit of link love this morning. I have discovered a wonderful blog all the way from Finland A House called Nut is a wonderful exploration of life by a couple living in a house called 'nut' in the forests of Finland. She blogs about making, foraging, wilderness, growing...all the good stuff and has a great photographic eye. Her tutorials are great too; her bangle wristwarmers got me all yarn excited. Another great blog that I susbscribe too on another forum is Inhabitat: its a green 'design' weblog , "devoted to the future of design, tracking the innovations in technology, practices and materials that are pushing architecture and home design towards a smarter and more sustainable future". It throws up some really cutting edge ideas and designs and is an exciting and interesting read covering areas of architecture, interiors, products, technology, energy and the arts. A more local newsletter i subscribe to is ecoconnect , a small Aussie business (located in Brissie) who specialise in communicating, educating and engaging creatively about science, natural resource management and the environment. Their newsletter is a great source of eco ideas. Oh, and a fresh new blog by an Adelaide landscape architecht with an eco passion often sidelined by great food who has a new blog all her own My Feet Move Forwards. Check 'em out.

rain

an indulgent bit of naughty- cloche de beurre

I blame Julie from Towards Sustainability and Em from Dance of Small Things for this indulgence. I had never heard of such a thing before they both posted about them. A butter bell, or french butter dish, designed to keep butter in an air tight, oxygen free environment by hanging it in a water bath thereby eliminating rancidity but still maintaining room temperature as it needs no refridgeration. Wikipedia says

This 19th century French-designed pottery crock has two parts: a base with a hollow cylinder attached to it, and a cup that also serves as a lid. The cup holds the packed in butter, and the base holds water. The water creates an airtight seal that keeps oxygen away from the butter so that refrigeration is not needed, and the butter can be used in its soft form. This method will keep butter for around a month provided it is kept at temperatures below 80F (27C).

The online literature says its traditionally French but my francophile husband reckons he never saw one in all his years in France! An American company has trademarked the name butter bell and seem to have a sales and production monopoly, so that got up my nose and i searched around, high and low for a producer/retailer in Oz. Zip.
Looks like this little invention has slipped by our national consciousness. So instead of waiting for the next local market to chat with the resident potter, i purchased this lovely hand made crock from Jim online...in Oregon. oops.But its lovely and looks just right in the kitchen. No more stilton style butter for me.

putting my money where my mouth is...

So i had narrowed the field down. One, a supermarket shelf type but purchaser driven, web compliant and somewhat individually tailored e-commerce web and logo development company. They're based in another state and run carbon neutral and support lots of female web developers. The other, a boutique 'green' business consultancy located about 100m from home with an amazing approach, fully customised 'we build your whole web business from the gound up' based web developer with an integrated waste system, green powered, carbon neutral, 100% recycled everything except the macs and telephones, practice. Its not hard to guess which one i really wanted to work with.

When push came to shove however, the difference in price of over $7000 kinda made my mind up for me. Yes, their designs are exemplary, exquisite in fact. Sigh, but thats a whole lotta bags!

oh no, pesto!

Its that time of the year again when the rocket is shooting away and I start looking at it like its a green manure crop and not something to be ingested. For me, feeling guilty at letting it all go to waste is a great motivator, so i put in the hours required to cut, trim and wash the rocket and the usual real killer of my best laid plans, shelling all the walnuts required for the pesto. All up i managed to use about a twentieth of the rocket and about a tenth of our walnut stash from last seasons crop,
a head of our garlic and a chunk of local parmesan and olive oil. viola. pesto! or as B1 said 'looks like something out of Harry Potter' i tend to agree.
But its so fresh and fragrant and flavoursome, the three F's! that it will definitely get devoured in a myriad of ways.

On an aside, the kid is thriving but i had forgotten just how enthusiastic about helping one year olds can be. Murphys Law about kids helping; when theyre old enough to do a good job they no longer want to do it. Everytime i get out the broom and start to sweep the floor, he rushes off to the laundry to grab the dustpan and brush, whizzes back and redistributes the pile I've made in a blustering effort to complete the task. Life is definitely taking more than twice as long these days...

life takes over your life

if you know what i mean...
i finally hauled myself off to the doctors this week to get a full blood test done. Thyroid malfunction at both extremes have plagued many women in my family so i wanted to get this and my iron count checked. I have been experiencing tiredness like never before. The 'is this what CFS feels like?' tiredness. The 'ohh i know ive just had 10 hours sleep but i could go a whole days extra' kind of tiredness. She actually laughed at me "yes i know i work, am finishing writing a thesis, have a one year old, two teenagers, am trying to set up a business, have a garden to manage, a household to help run and exercise three times a week, but i feel more tired then normal" . I have to say after telling her all that i felt pretty stupid! hmmm, maybe i no longer know what normal is?

Life seems to be running away from me, im happy, interested, enthusiastic, but i cant seem to squeeze enough hours out of the day to do what i want to do. i need spares, time vouchers please. So this weekend im purposefully spending my time slowing down, sorting out my life by cleaning and organising the study, removing dead printers,sorting the piles that need filing so i dont lose track of where im at. im feeling like another week of chaos may tip me over the edge "sorry, what company are you from? who are you? i ordered what?" I know myself well enough now that a good tidy up followed by the reward of a few long hours chopping and stirring fridge and pantry contents into something special is literally just what the doctor ordered. Now, i just have to decide on the something really tasty and special to cook? What do you like to indulge in preparing when you're in need of some one-on-one with a saucepan? Some ideas would be great.

and the winner is?

Last night in Adelaide the Greenpeace design awards for 2009 were held. Due to incredible interest and volume of submissions,the awards were split into an international and Aussie category. Some incredible designs were put forward. The winner,second place and runner up? who do you think?