Wipe-able

When Daisy came to live with us we were told that she was aggressive towards small dogs, that she was incontinent and would require daily medication and that she didn’t like men… but that she travelled well. It turned out, after a bit of experience with her, that none of these things was true. We think that all her problems were associated with stress, and now she’s happy and settled, they have gone away. Except she gets sick in the car.

She’s fine for journeys of up to half an hour, but after that, showing absolutely no signs of stress – no hair loss, no drooling, no trembling – she vomits. Even if we don’t feed her for hours before the journey, she still vomits. We go prepared – spare bedding and towels, plus a big plastic bag to store the soiled stuff – but there’s quite a lot of washing to do at the end of it all.

So, this week I decided to make a waterproof bed for her travel crate – something that could be wiped easily. It will still need to be combined with a small absorbent towel, but it will significantly reduce the volume of washing. I knew that I had enough secondhand materials to achieve this – waterproof fabric for the outer and woolly pads for the inside. First, I removed the wool padding from some WoolCool insulation (more details about this in this post). It is made in relatively long narrow strips, so needed to be cut and stitched together to obtain the right size pad for inside the cushion. I stitched the pieces together with wool yarn so that if there is any felting, the yarn will bond securely to the pads. I could have deliberately felted the whole thing together, but since to bed will sit flat in the crate with relatively little disturbance, I decided that this was unnecessary. In total I stitched three layers on top of each other, with none of the joins aligned in the different layers

The outer was made from a waterproof tablecloth that I bought secondhand. I really like the design and plan to make a bag using some of it, but it’s huge, so there was plenty for a dog bed. I cut out a piece the right size, stitched it into an envelope and inserted the pad before sewing it up.

Then daisy checked it out in the crate to make sure I had done a good job:

On Wednesday, we trialled it on a journey lasting an hour and a quarter. It worked well up to a point, but there was some over-spill, if you’ll excuse the image that conjures. So, phase two has involved the construction of a barrier to enhance containment. I made a long strip of fabric, stitched the corners to give them some support and then mitred the bottom part at each corner, so that 10 cm of the fabric would lie flat under the cushion, whilst 15 cm would stand upright. A few metal pegs to hold everything in place, and we are ready for the next trial run.

If I was making it for someone else, I would use a double layer of the fabric for the upright part, so that the back wasn’t showing from the outside. However, for my own purposes, and because its not designed to be decorative, merely functional, I’m happy to leave it as it is. Hopefully, no further modifications will be required.

The only new material used in this project was sewing thread – not a bad creation from unwanted items.

27 Comments

by The Snail of Happiness on November 10, 2019 • Permalink

Posted in craft, ethical living, travel

Tagged Daisy, dog bed, travel sickness, waterproof

Posted by The Snail of Happiness on November 10, 2019

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2019/11/10/wipe-able/

PS

Once more I am in tears about Patricia. A friend of hers sent me this link via Facebook. It is worth reading.

What a wonderful and kind woman the world has lost.

5 Comments

by The Snail of Happiness on November 8, 2019 • Permalink

Posted in community and society

Posted by The Snail of Happiness on November 8, 2019

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2019/11/08/ps/

Patricia Collins

I’m very sorry to tell you that Patricia Collins has died.

Patricia, as you may recall, wrote a number of guest posts for me and regularly commented, joining in with our discussions of everything from recycling to charity knitting. She had mentioned to me that she wasn’t well, but I had no idea how ill she was. In fact, Patricia was the person I wrote a letter to last Thursday whilst I sat in the pub with Sam… sadly she never received it… and now I wish I’d sent her an email instead.

I never met Patricia. She found my blog via a mutual friend, but I now have no idea who that was. She first contacted me towards the end of 2017 and I wrote about her getting in touch here. What a kind person she was: she loved the interaction on the blog, but was concerned about the pressure it put on me to write and respond, so she offered guest blog posts to help things along. I never had to edit what she had written – it always fitted so easily into The Snail of Happiness ethos. In addition, she sent me little gifts and we communicated via email and she inspired me. If I hadn’t written a post for a while she would always drop me a line to check that I was ok and write encouraging words.

I will miss those emails SO much. I will miss my friend who I never met. And I will mourn the fact that we never had the chance to chat over tea and cake and talk about yarn and dogs and saving the planet.

Goodbye, Patricia, and thank you for being such a lovely person

-oOo-

You can read Patricia’s posts here, here, here, here, here and this one, which is a combined one from the two of us.

22 Comments

by The Snail of Happiness on November 6, 2019 • Permalink

Posted in blogging, community and society, Patricia's posts

Posted by The Snail of Happiness on November 6, 2019

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2019/11/06/patricia-collins/

Watching the world

Four times a year Daisy goes to have her hair done. She’s a very woolly spaniel and without grooming, she gets matted and this causes skin problems, not to mention discomfort. When she first came to us the fur on her ears was very tangled and the only way to deal with the problem was to have them clipped – it was impossible to get through the mats even with a specialist ‘rake’, and attempting to do so caused her pain. So, every 12 weeks or so I take her to Vicky, the groomer at the vets, and she is transformed from a woolly bear:

To a sleek, shiny spaniel:

Whilst Daisy is being washed and clipped, Sam and I have an hour to spend. Since, it is often raining, we have got into the habit of going to a dog-friendly pub. I buy a coffee and Sam has complimentary dog biscuits, It’s a rather nice building, with big windows that have wide, low sills – just perfect for a small dog to settle down on and watch the world go by:

Sam is happy to be entertained this way for an hour, and she usually gets some fuss from other customers, but I try to take something to occupy my time. One or two of you have received a letter that I have written in this very spot, and another one of you will be the lucky recipient of this my latest epistle. In fact, from the perspective of letters, I could do with weekly trips to catch up!

Sometimes it’s good to have time out like this… and you will notice there was a letter involved, so I’m getting over my writer’s block – hurrah!

11 Comments

by The Snail of Happiness on November 1, 2019 • Permalink

Posted in health and wellbeing

Tagged coffee, Daisy, grooming, letters, pub, Sam, writing

Posted by The Snail of Happiness on November 1, 2019

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2019/11/01/watching-the-world/

Ready

Much as I like cooking, I’m not always very good at eating, at least not when I’m at home on my own. I often just don’t feel like bothering. I get distracted by something I’m doing, in the evening particularly, and by the time I think about eating, it feels like it’s too late. A few weeks ago, I was so remiss that I ended up rather unwell and having to visit my doctor, where I was prescribed something to help calm my digestive system. This seems rather silly, since the issue is completely avoidable – I just need to eat!

The solution (obviously) is to have things available that I want to eat. Things that can be prepared quickly, but that are nutritious and appealing, especially since I frequently can’t even think of anything that I actually fancy.

So, over the past few weeks, as well as making lots of individually portioned soups for the freezer, I’ve been cooking extra so that I have some home-made “ready meals”. I’ve now got several portions of bolognaise, pork casserole and lasagne all waiting for evenings when I can’t bring myself to prepare anything. As you can see, there’s some room on the shelf for more – I’d like to be well-stocked with lots of variety.

Indeed, yesterday I found myself not wanting to cook and not in the mood for food. However, I was able to extract a lasagne, defrost it and then pop it in the oven to warm up without really having to consider that I actually didn’t feel like eating. I’m making sure that all my ready meals contain lots of vegetables, so I get some nutritional balance. Hopefully this will prevent further medications and trips to the GP.

And now I am looking for suggestions and recipes: what do you suggest I might include in my ready meal repertoire?

15 Comments

by The Snail of Happiness on October 29, 2019 • Permalink

Posted in food and cooking, health and wellbeing

Tagged bolognaise, casserole, eating, freezer, lasagne, ready meals

Posted by The Snail of Happiness on October 29, 2019

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2019/10/29/ready/

More, more, more

Economics, as it’s currently understood, is all about growth. The economy is failing unless it continues to grow; wages must keep rising; there must be inflation; we must spend more and consume more. If not, we are failing. But why? What skewed theory is based on continuous growth? It doesn’t work in natural systems, so why would it work in human systems?

Adam Smith, who seems to be at the bottom of much of current economics, considered that technology would result in increased outputs. The enhanced economy would lead to reduced mortality and increased fertility thus delivering an increasing workforce to deliver this ever-expanding economic growth.

At much the same time as Smith was developing his theories, Thomas Malthus was writing about about limitations. In recent years, Malthus has been somewhat maligned and his Limits to Growth model has been criticised for its simplicity. It’s true that there are more factors to consider than Malthus’ simple contention that food production could only increase arithmetically, whilst the population could expand geometrically, thus the former would limit the latter. However, in a more general way, you have to accept that he had a point: the world contains finite resources, and at some point these are going to limit the populations (human and other organisms) that can be supported.

And it is resources that I have been thinking a lot about lately. The two main environmental issues in the news recently have been plastics and climate change, but really the overarching factor is over-exploitation of finite resources. Whatever aspect of the environment you are concerned about, reducing your use of resources will have a positive impact. Use less “stuff” and you will reduce energy consumption (in production and transportation of goods). Buy less “stuff” and make what you have last longer and there will be less material that needs to be disposed of or recycled. Make the best use of the resources you already have and you will be reducing your impact on the planet.

The economy may not grow as a result of your actions, but the economy is simply a human construct, whilst life in the oceans (for example) is very real and will certainly benefit. In my opinion, a change in what we consider important – from economics to ecology – cannot come soon enough.

8 Comments

by The Snail of Happiness on October 23, 2019 • Permalink

Posted in community and society

Tagged Adam Smith, economics, growth, Malthus

Posted by The Snail of Happiness on October 23, 2019

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2019/10/23/more-more-more/

Apples of my own

As you may know, our garden isn’t very big. I do what I can with it, but there is only limited space. As a result, I don’t have room (unlike Sister of Snail) for an orchard. However, a few years ago,we were given an apple on a very dwarf rootstock, which now lives with the chickens… which liberally apply fertiliser around it and make it very happy.

The variety is an interesting old one “Ashmead’s Kernel”, which is a good dual purpose variety with a great flavour, although visually it’s not very appealing. It takes a few years to start fruiting well and, apparently , it can be quite pernickety about pollinators, but this year in our garden it thrived. I used some of the fruit in my most recent batch of sweet hot chilli sauce, but this morning I picked the rest of the crop for bottling.

It doesn’t look much in the bucket, but once prepared, there were enough apples to make six 500ml jars. I’m so happy to finally be bottling my own apples from the garden. It’s not enough to keep us going through the year, but it sure is satisfying.

11 Comments

by The Snail of Happiness on October 18, 2019 • Permalink

Posted in food and cooking, gardening and growing

Tagged Ashmead's Kernel, bottling, preserving

Posted by The Snail of Happiness on October 18, 2019

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2019/10/18/apples-of-my-own/

ScrapHappy October 2019

I really had no excuse for not writing a ScrapHappy post last month other than not feeling like writing… I wasn’t as if I hadn’t done anything scrappy. I just couldn’t rouse myself to blog.

However, my newly restored enthusiasm for writing ( actually, that’s a lie, I’m still finding it hard) means that this month you get to see something yarny made using scraps. I have lots of scrap sock yarn, partly because one 100g ball can make me three socks and since I only have two feet, I often have a third of a ball left over. I could use all this yarn to make multi-coloured socks, but I have decided that it would be more fun to crochet with it. So, I’m making little squares (just five rounds each) and I’m planning to join them together with black yarn (I have some scrap black, but probably not enough) to give a sort of stained glass window effect. You’ll have to use your imagination, though, as currently all I have are these:

This is only the start

In addition, I continue to tie short lengths of scrap yarn together to make an ever-growing ball. When it is big enough, I will crochet it into a hat and that will be donated to charity, as I’ve done for a while now.

Not big enough to make anything yet, but getting there

-oOo-

I’ve been inspired to write this (and future) ScrapHappy posts by Kate, Tall Tales from Chiconia. On the fifteenth of every month lots of other folks often publish a ScrapHappy post, do check them out:

Kate, Gun, Titti, Heléne, Eva, Sue, Nanette, Lynn, Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy, Debbierose, Tracy, Jill, Claire, Jan (me), Karen,
Moira, Sandra, Linda, Chris, Nancy, Alys, Kerry, Claire, Jean, Johanna,
Joanne, Jon, Hayley, Dawn, Gwen, Connie, Bekki and Sue

If you fancy joining, contact Kate and she’ll add you to the list. It would be lovely to see more non-sewing posts, but any use of scraps is welcome.

15 Comments

by The Snail of Happiness on October 15, 2019 • Permalink

Posted in craft, Scrap Happy

Tagged hair, overlocker, sewing, towel

Posted by The Snail of Happiness on October 15, 2019

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2019/10/15/scraphappy-october-2019/

Autumn kitchen

I’m always in two minds about this time of year – one the one hand, I hate the days getting shorter and the reduced opportunities for walks with the dogs, but on the other these couple of months are always associated with happy times in the kitchen, as I preserve the harvest (mine and that of others). So, I am choosing to concentrate on the positives and spend time enjoying the abundance.

I went and bought lots of lovely vegetables – many locally produced – on Friday and have spent the past couple of days combining these with some home-grown produce to make passata, delicious soups and a second batch of sweet, hot chilli sauce. This year has been particularly good for chillies in the limery: I grew lemon drop, trifetti, Trinidad perfume, red and purple jalapenos and hot cayenne. In total, I’ve harvested approximately 2kg, but I haven’t kept track exactly, as I often pick a few to use immediately. Anyway, there’s more than 1.6kg in the freezer, we’ve eaten lots and each batch of chilli sauce uses 100g. In addition, there are still some yet to ripen in the limery and also there are the outdoor ones to bring inside.

Since we are close to ScrapHappy day, I do want to point out the use of “scraps” in my soup-making. Whenever we have meat bones, I boil them up to make stock, then freeze this in blocks. I never use a stock cube or stock powder, I just use my frozen stock and add whatever herbs and spices I fancy. On the bottom left above, you can see two blocks of lamb stock added to the chopped and lightly fried vegetables that became leek and potato soup.

And so, my freezer is filling up nicely – soup, chillies and little blocks of passata, as well as stock and roasted peppers from earlier on in the year – all ready to fend off the winter blues.

9 Comments

by The Snail of Happiness on October 13, 2019 • Permalink

Posted in food and cooking, gardening and growing

Tagged abundance, chillies, harvest, soup, vegetables

Posted by The Snail of Happiness on October 13, 2019

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2019/10/13/autumn-kitchen/

Write off

It’s a strange thing, writer’s block. I’m not sure why, but somehow I just haven’t been able to bring myself to write anything much for weeks – no letters, no work on the book and (as you may have noticed) no blog posts. It’s not that I didn’t have anything to share, it just felt incredibly reluctant to put fingers to keyboard. I’ve been quite busy – the root canal work is finally completed, I’ve finally finished a series of doctor’s appointments and I’ve spent two weekends away with two different sets of lovely ladies (hello to The Crochet Sanctuary Crowd and the Fabulous Fifties). I have stitched, hooked, knitted and sorted. Three boxes of books have gone to the Oxfam book shop, a box of craft materials has gone to be sold at an Emmaus shop that has a specialist craft section and a bag of bras has gone for recycling/reuse. I have had a great harvest of chillies and sweet peppers and a mediocre harvest of courgettes, peas and potatoes. There has been a new member of the household – Mimi the dressmakers dummy and I have learnt to do macrame. So, all-in-all, a busy time. It’s just that I wasn’t inspired to write, or even take many photographs. However, here is a little selection of what I’ve been making, doing and growing, with the hope that the next blog post will come more easily and sooner…