Nice people thread part 4 - sugar and spice and all things

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Generali wrote: »

Good luck all and I'll see you when I see you.

Gen, we'll miss you.

You are one of the few posters that make it worth bothering with this place any more.

Good luck with your endeavors (not that you'll need it I'm sure).

Davesnave

fc123 wrote: »

I will join you in the excitement as ours are turning slightly red now at long last.....but they are very small. Davesnaves are the nuts tho'..did you see his pic?

PV panels are meant to the better ones to get aren't they LJ? I missed how much yours costed up.

By growing an early type, we've been running on our own tomatoes since early June, but we've no special facilities, just a conservatory and a battered old polytunnel with no doors. We're also 500' above sea level.

What we have over you guys, is time.

The longer I do this partial self-sufficiency thing, the more I realise how difficult it is to go beyond scratching the surface. Yes, we've a good amount of stuff produced on-site, but I still find myself in the supermarket almost every week. Next year, we want to do better in that respect; i.e. shop locally more often and do the supermarket stuff three weekly, or even monthly. It's all about being more organised.

I suppose we eat well and our fairly small income seems to last OK, until something major breaks down. Thanks to the bartering system and our land, we receive a quantity of 'free' fuel and meat, but no way is it enough to meet more than a fraction of our needs. It's scary how much we depend on oil too, both for heating, getting about and maintaining the place. (machinery, fertilizer, weedkillers etc.)

If we weren't soon to be altering our roof, we'd have joined Lydia with the solar panels by now. If you're in a long term house, that has to be a great investment for the future.

lostinrates

Davesnave wrote: »

The longer I do this partial self-sufficiency thing, the more I realise how difficult it is to go beyond scratching the surface. Yes, we've a good amount of stuff produced on-site, but I still find myself in the supermarket almost every week. Next year, we want to do better in that respect; i.e. shop locally more often and do the supermarket stuff three weekly, or even monthly. It's all about being more organised.

I suppose we eat well and our fairly small income seems to last OK, until something major breaks down. Thanks to the bartering system and our land, we receive a quantity of 'free' fuel and meat, but no way is it enough to meet more than a fraction of our needs. It's scary how much we depend on oil too, both for heating, getting about and maintaining the place. (machinery, fertilizer, weedkillers etc.)

If we weren't soon to be altering our roof, we'd have joined Lydia with the solar panels by now. If you're in a long term house, that has to be a great investment for the future.

costs are a huge problem...you and I both bought places that need work....but work costs too!

I think we could cope pretty well with more foraging and our bartering, and we don't grow anything like as well and much as you. The toms this year have been quite disapointing. the one successful cherry tom did ok, producing something most days, we had two very early plants too, but they contracted the blight, its only now that the marmonds are producing and they are ripening very slowly....(spread banana skins out there today: not self suffficient!). We have a sorce of milk and eggs, the chickens produce more chicken than we tend to eat...we could easily eat more of that and drop back. Bartering has got us lamb and beef for the year, we could probably sort out something similar for pork. I'll never be totally self sufficient as I'm afraid I want things from further afield...whether thats Brixham or Barcelona, but still.

I don't need to go to the supermarket weekly..though the greengrocers..particularly as their stuff wants eating quickly, more so. I find not having south facing window sills a real PITA for production of stuff...we only have one atm. And I miss the conservatory....which really was excellent for getting stuff going early. we're not having a conservatory here, and I feel that may have been an error....its just...in the day time we tend to either be outside enjoying it, or inside hiding from the sun, and its really at its best, the conservatory, in the rain or when its more expensive to heat in the cold months.

lostinrates

fc123 wrote: »

I am not sure whether that was one on my OH's list of ideas....did he enjoy it?

I don't know what the spiky balls are but we use a tumble dryer and as long as a bit of conditioner is in the rinse, then things don't go static..

the spikey balls I've seen in shops for driers. I think I'll get some. Getting a dryer is a weird thing, noone in my family has ever had one and I've always considere them unnecessary. When I had one where we lived in london (only time I've had one) I was a bit obcessed with it, then realised how much it cost to run. I'd say I used it for about four -eight weeks of my life. I don't think I would ever have got one if we'd not been in the heating situation. The idea of not being able to dry stuff through the freezing cold months was just too much. After reading lots of energy stuff and vented v condenser stuff I went for a cheap condenser with a lower operating cost but surprisingly a worse energy rating than some of the others. I only will be using it in the worst of weather, so it seemed silly to get the very swich one to match the new washing machine.



Of course dh liked plumbing it in, its a shiny new toy, we sat anmd watched a wash almost all the way through. The new machine does a thing where when its finished it doe s''anti crease'' movements every now and again, which means I can't do what I normally do and hear from next door that its finished, because it could be finished but anti-creasing. It has a digital display and we had to choose a language. Once I'm familar with it I'm going to change the langtheuage so that I can learn how to do laundry in lots of other countries.


Any way, we had a really nice evening, both during and after the washing machine.

michaels

Of course one problem with the new washing machines is that they don't vibrate nearly so much on the spin cycle

lostinrates wrote: »

Of course dh liked plumbing it in, its a shiny new toy, we sat anmd watched a wash almost all the way through. The new machine does a thing where when its finished it doe s''anti crease'' movements every now and again, which means I can't do what I normally do and hear from next door that its finished, because it could be finished but anti-creasing. It has a digital display and we had to choose a language. Once I'm familar with it I'm going to change the langtheuage so that I can learn how to do laundry in lots of other countries.


Any way, we had a really nice evening, both during and after the washing machine.

PasturesNew

lostinrates wrote: »

once i'm familar with it i'm going to change the langtheuage so that i can learn how to do laundry in lots of other countries.

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sss555s

fc123 wrote: »

.........I'll try to find an upload of Mr Paparazzis tummy body contouring for you as making him laugh could be a good start if he has had a hard week.:D Trust me, it is the funniest thing ever.

This is funny

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXW1Sllxlj8

:rotfl:

JonnyBravo

Such a potty mouth.

:rotfl:

silvercar

We have a sunflower!

This is odd in that we didn't plant it. In fact we didn't know it was a sunflower until it flowered this week. I guess a bird dropped a seed.

lostinrates

this morning, after animals, we were having coffee, and I suggested we stick a fork in the ground where we thought the grass showed evidence of somehting underneath around the edge of what would have been ''the south wing''. This afternoon we have a ''new'' garden path and very filthy pjs....and breakfast feels a long time ago. We had to stop for rain at one point.

Sadly the path it in really bad condition and the last ten feet or so are totally disinterated. We've got some stone we can put on top of that to make it useable this winter. The top layer looks like it would have been concrete, over tarmac...so not terribly ancient. The bit that is a real wreck is where the damaged wing would have been pulled down and removed, so probably destroyed in that process. But it makes me wonder what is underneath that....from before when there was tarmacadam...there would still have been a path there, because it leads from the front door around the misisng bit of house to the back path and out to the ''drive'' and the farm yard. It might have been stone/shale, or maybe something better. we've decided not to dig down and look today, but might in the future.

We both think though, we preferred the garden without the path, lol.