All posts tagged cleaning

Out of my life

As the year draws to a close I have been reviewing some of the changes that I’ve made in my life over the past 12 months. Every year I try to do things to make my life that bit more sustainable, and this past year has been no exception:

  • I’ve given up liquid shampoo and shower gel in order to reduce transport of water and to cut out a bit of plastic packaging. I did come across some previously unnoticed shampoo in the bathroom the other day which I am using up, but once that’s done with there will be no more. I’m now only buying bars of soap/shampoo packed in cardboard/paper.
  • In goes the second one

    Our own container at the take-away

    I’ve started saying ‘no’ to lots of packaging – taking our own containers to the butchers and the take-away, for example, means a few less plastic bags and a bit less aluminium foil in the world.We also take our own fabric bags and repeatedly reused plastic bags to the greengrocer’s to put our veggies in. Plastic carrier bags have not been part of our life for many years.

  • We are now buying all our milk direct from a local farm. This means much lower energy inputs (transportation, processing) and no plastic cartons, as we take our own churn. In addition, we are keeping money in the local economy and the milk is delicious and great for making cheese, yoghurt and extracting the cream.
  • I’ve invested in a steam juicer, so we have another way of processing all the apples we tend to get given in the autumn. Making our own juice means repeated re-use of the bottles (cutting down on packaging), reducing transportation of processed juice and thus fewer food miles and knowing exactly what’s in the juice we are drinking.
  • I’ve given up fly paper – it may seem like a small thing, but it’s nice to feel that the fly control in the limery is being achieved by plants rather than a manufactured product.
  • during

    home-made brass cleaner

    I’m now making my own deodorant – it’s more effective than the ‘green’ stuff I was buying before, plus there’s relatively little packaging and it’s made from very simple ingredients.

  • I’ve started making more of my own cleaning products: re-usable cleaning wipes, window cleaner, brass cleaner. All of these rely on limited ingredients and I now have supplies of alcohol, white vinegar, bicarbonate of soda and essential oils to make what I need when I need it.
  • I’ve increased the amount of mending that I’m doing. Darning, patching and sticking things together with Sugru are amongst my most common types of mending.

I’m not sure that’s everything for 2016, but it seems like some good steps forward. My next challenge is a bit more daunting: excluding palm oil from my life. I think that all our toiletries and household cleaning products are palm oil free, and I cook most of our food from scratch, so there’s none in that, but I do have a problem: my weakness for biscuits. I do like a chocolate digestive biscuit with a cuppa and sadly I have found that McVities, who make my favourite type, use palm oil. So, I have to find a brand I like that’s ethical, make my own, or give them up entirely. I’m now checking all the other products we use that may contain palm oil, just in case…

 

13 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on December 7, 2016  •  Permalink
Posted in ethical living, reducing consumption
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on December 7, 2016

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2016/12/07/out-of-my-life/

Putting the limery to bed

On Saturday, kitted out in my new stripy pinny, I tackled a job that I have been putting off… getting the limery sorted for winter.

Now that the temperatures have dropped, we’re not spending so much time out there – although it’s an excellent location for hand sewing as the light is so good. We are tending to drink our morning coffee in the kitchen and most of the plants that filled the space have died or died back, although the citrus trees are now in there after their summer outside and there’s one tomato plant that’s still surviving.

Lime
Tomato
Orange

There were two main jobs that needed doing: cleaning and cutting back. I like to give the pepper plants a chance to survive the winter (although it’s a bit hit and miss), but they need to be pruned back. Some of the carnivores die back, and it’s important to keep them tidy and not swamped by decomposing leaves. So, all the peppers were chopped back to stems, the insectivorous plants cleaned up and I put all of them outside in the sunshine whilst I gave the windows and sills a thorough cleaning (mainly with white vinegar).

Finally, everything was returned to the limery and a few of the potted herbs were brought in – rosemary (I tend to lose this outdoors over the winter), sage and oregano – as well as the (still small) tea plant. The passion fruit was already nice and tidy, so I think we are all set for a period without much growth of anything.

Tea
Passion fruit
Sage and rosemary

It feels like winter is really here, although I remind myself that it’s only about six weeks before I’ll have to get the propagator out for sowing the 2017 peppers and chillies, which just goes to show how the limery has extended our gardening year!

Oh and remember, if you want to have a chance of winning my little crochet decorations, you need to leave a comment on last Thursday’s post telling me what’s making you smile this week (a ‘like’ won’t do).

21 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on November 29, 2016  •  Permalink
Posted in gardening and growing
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on November 29, 2016

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2016/11/29/putting-the-limery-to-bed/

Preservation, preservation, preservation

It’s that time of the year again when produce is abundant – both in the garden and on the market – and so my mind turns to preserving it for those future lean times.

As a result I had two main jobs this morning: first a visit to the Friday fruit and veg market and then cleaning the family preserving pan. The shopping trip can only be done on a Friday, so I had to miss going swimming. They set up in Newcastle Emlyn early, so I left home at 7am in order to make sure I got there before what I wanted had sold out. I arrived before 7:30 and started selecting my bulk purchases. I returned home through the early-morning mist with two large trays of tomatoes, two trays of nectarines and a bag of 20 peaches. I will return for more produce in a week or two (when, hopefully they will have plum tomatoes like last year and trays of peaches), but what I bought will keep me busy for a little while.

And so to the next task. All this preserving – passata, bottled peaches, nectarine purée – will be greatly facilitated by my second preserving pan. However, having spent several years in my mother’s barn, it needed a little cleaning. A quick internet search suggested that brass could be cleaned quite easily using a mixture of white vinegar (half a cup), salt (one teaspoon) and flour (enough to make it into a paste). All you do is dissolve the salt in the vinegar, add enough flour to get a spreadable consistency, smear the paste on your brass, leave for 10 minutes and then wipe/rinse off and dry. And I’m pleased to say, it worked. I did the inside of the pan twice and the outside once… and if it was for decoration I might do it again, but for my purposes, it looks good and was very easy – no elbow grease required!

before
during
after

So now, there are tomatoes roasting in the oven and for the rest of the weekend I will be getting sticky with peaches, nectarines and sugar syrup.

13 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on August 5, 2016  •  Permalink
Posted in food and cooking, reducing consumption
Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Posted by The Snail of Happiness on August 5, 2016

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2016/08/05/preservation-preservation-preservation/

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