We are reasonably avid composters at house. What isn't fit for the chickens goes into a bucket in the kitchen and then makes it into the compost heap. We pop in our grass clippings mixed with leaves and most of our weeds and all the things that normal people put into a compost heap. I was at a gardening club meeting a week or so ago and in their library I saw a book called "Extreme Composting" by a guy called David the Good  and picked it up - completely intrigued by the title!         I thought we had composting sorted in our house but it seems you can take composting to a whole new level! In the book he does cover all sorts of composting - worm composting, melon pit composting, banana circle composting, compost crops, cow manure composting, sheet composting, chicken manure composting, and humanure composting. So if there is a type of composting that you have always wanted to know about and or try, its in here! But its not a technica...

I was flicking through Jamie Olivers latest cook book (that I got out from the library) and found this wonderful idea to pickle all those left over bits of vegetables that end up lurking in the fridge in that not-enough-for-a-meal-but-too-good-to-be-thrown-to-the-chooks-yet way. He calls them House Pickles! I think they are just wonderful! Here's what I did...   This is the page from his book, "Save with Jamie". He talks about having bits and bobs left over from salads that just sit in the fridge until they finally go off and you throw them into the compost or maybe to the chooks... (has this man been looking in my fridge??)   Its a pretty simple concept: Put a mixture of 1 part cold water to 2 parts vinegar into a sterilised jar (leaving enough room for the veges) and add 1 heaped tablespoon each of sugar and salt, stir, and add spices and herbs to taste - pop in the veges, seal and leave in the fridge for up to eight weeks.   The idea is ...

I read a fair bit and recently I created a book list page on my blog to share my thoughts on various books with those who also like to read. I have to return a whole lot of books to the library this week and so I thought I had better update my book list before I forgot the book details and never got around to sharing them with you all. So, if you are reader yourself - have a look at what I've been reading and let me know what you thought of the same books and what books you recommend me to read as well! To have a look at my book list click here or click on the page tab at the top of the blog. Happy Reading!

Since the ginger beer that I made a few weeks ago was a great hit, I thought I'd have a go at the 'Sparkling Rose Petal' drink that Sally Wise has included in her book - A year in a bottle. The family did the 'Why on earth would you want to drink rose petals?' thing on me but as I pointed out to them, they don't have to drink it - just humour me while I have a go at making it... Here's what happened! The biggest problem I had was where to get rose petals. I had thought of neighbours and relatives that grow them but collecting them all at once in lrge enough quanities was proving to be a stumbling block... So when I came across a stall at the markets that sold big bags of rose petals for $3, I had to give it a go!! So first I gave all the petals a quick soak and a shake to make sure that I had washed off any bugs and/or chemicals that they may have been sprayed with (even though the lady assured me they didn't spray...) The recipe called for ...

Many Many moons ago, a Landlord left  a laundry shelf of home made ginger beer for us to drink when we moved into the house. It only took a few nights of glass bottle ginger beer explosions to work out why he decided to leave them for us rather than attempt to transport them to his new house! We enjoyed drinking them much more than we enjoyed cleaning up the glass bottle fragments I can tell you! Fast forward quite a few more years and a neighbour gives us a Ginger Beer Bug so we could make our own home made ginger beer - and we did! And it was great fun! And we used plastic 1.25 litre bottles and never cleaned up a single shard of glass - although we did have to mop down a few walls and even the ceiling on odd occasions - Don't shake your ginger beer before opening it, unless you like gingery sugary walls!  Making ginger beer at home is not hard at all and a nice change from cordials (or soft drink if that's your thing!) and can be the basis for a few mock-tails a...

I have been slowly moving my way to greener cleaners around the house and last week the loo came under scrutiny. I have no trouble keeping the outside clean nor the seat and cistern. The inside of the bowl is no real problem but there is this horrible buildup of, well who wants to contemplate that really, right at the bottom - almost out of sight on the bendy bit. (in the spirit of sparing your delicate senses - I have not included photos in this post!) I have had numerous scrubs at it, used a number of proprietary cleaners on it but nothing seems to shift it. I was looking through a book called Express House Cleaning and it reckoned that denture tablets were the way to go. Not having any of them in the house I moved onto the next suggestion and Voila - it worked! Here's what I did... Its almost too easy for words... I dumped a big handful of Bi-carb into the bottom of the loo after everyone had left the house for the day, gave it a bit of a scrub, added a b...

I read on Nicola's blog - if it came from a plant  about the way she is greening up her toiletries and in paticular, her skin cleansing routine which got stuck in a loop in my brain and eventually I had to do something about it. I'm pretty good at buying green/natural/organic skin care lotions and makeup in the first place but I have a book called 'The Green Beauty Guide ' and I wanted to make some bits an pieces out of that since I was on the cusp of needing more product anyway. So I dug the book up, re-read some parts and dived into the kitchen to make some lotions and potions for myself... Here's what I did... I made up a cleanser with a combination of olive oil (which I normally use), rice bran oil (cause its a lot lighter and not so gluggy), some rose massage oil from the body shop, a few drops of rose and jasmine essential oils with some vanilla extract for scent.  It smells divine!    I decanted that into a flip top bottle an...

I came across Rhonda's website when she was just starting to end the process of getting her book published and watched with interest as the proof copies appeared and read her posts about what she was thinking. Lots of people were writing to say they had ordered copies and so I thought I would have a look at one too - Having never seen a blog turn into a book, I was curious to say the least. My first port of call when looking for any book is our local library. I wandered through the catalogue, backwards and forwards and couldn't find Rhonda's book anywhere. So I emailed the chief Librarian and asked if she was thinking of buying it and if so, I'd be keen to borrow it. It arrived at the library on the same day that the books went on sale! I got first dibs on it and by the time I picked it up a day later, there were 13 people with requests in for it already - Now that's a popular book! So what did I think? Its great! I somehow thought there would be more recipe...

have been on a bit of a de-cluttering binge for about a year now. We have made umpteen donations to our local charity shops, had a garage sale with the neighbours, been to five local church car boot sales (as sellers not buyers!), sold stuff on e-bay and Gumtree and sold a lot of the heavier stuff (beds, BBQ's)  from the front of the house to passers by! I reckon I have put an extra $600 on the mortgage selling all this junk! I'm sure I still have a lot of junk and recently at my local library (I love my library!!! All those free books!!!) I found this book called "Throw out Fifty Things".  (Link to book)  I grabbed it and took it home to see what this authors angle was. Its pretty simple. And I'm thinking its working for me!! Here's what I did... First I read the whole book! I find it helps to see what the overall angle is. Gail Blanke turns out to be a motivator in the good ol' U.S. of A and even though the first forty or so items she wants you t...

I'm a bit frugal when it comes to replacing things - preferring to fix, repair or live with something until it falls to bit on me (Like my lucky interview shoes that fell apart when I got out of the car after the interview!) So when visiting the library one day when I saw a copy of "How to clean practically anything" I thought I'd take it home and have a flick through it. This book is about taking the guesswork out of cleaning walls, clothes, toys, antiques, the windows or whatever it is that you have decided you need to clean but aren't sure how.  Its a good reference book to have lying around to refer to when you are taking a punt rather than are confident about what you are doing. For me, its a back up. I think I know how to deal with bubble gum stuck to the side of a shoe but cant remember which oil to use; tea tree or Eucalyptus. (Its Eucalyptus for the record) And it turns out that if you can stick the item in the freezer for a few minutes, the gum ...