Hoarding - Springing Ahead

GreyQueen

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

now there's a compliment you don't get everyday

I know!

My lottie is visible from the road and it's not at all uncommon for me to be hailed by a friend/ acquaintance/ workmate whilst gardening. I feel embarrassed to have 'good onions' as the sum total of my effort was; buy 2 pkts of onions sets from Poondland, make rows of holes in ground for said items, drop them in and weed occasionally. They're silly-easy to grow, bless them.

The bestest ever passer-by 'compliment' was when two loutish types slouching by eyed-up the spuds as I was digging them up one remarked to the other Would you look at the size of those effing things! :rotfl: Could have been worse; they could have been commenting on my rear end.

Have been very tired today despite having gone to bed at 9.30pm last night and had to go to bed for an hour after coming in from work. Hi, my name is GQ and my hobby is sleeping.......:p never mind, I'm up and about for the next 2 hours or so.

Am about to haul a few small bits out of the nooks and crannies of the flat and add them to the donation bag which is half full. Flat isn't too bad atm although it's so small that it can default into chaos at the drop of a hat.

I will also do another 'day' from the travel diary by typing it up as I'm on the home stretch of that project. When it's done, I will check it and print it then have the copy-shop bind the pages into the covers I have already had made and then I shall shred the scruffy notebook. The notebook takes up a lot of room compared with the typed version and even I squint at my handwriting sometimes to work out what I meant.

Silvasava, a lot of the things we have in our lives aren't that important, are they? But once we're gone, they may assume Sacred Object Status to our survivors, who will then guilt themselves about not wanting them. Far better to thin the herd before you go to avoid the aggro and the heartache later.

I have just finished a doorstep of a library book, which I will return tomorrow after work, along with another finished last week, and restock the fiction part of my reading so I can keep my arrangement. I like non-fiction but I can't live on an exclusive diet of it, I need some distraction reading as well, often involving SF or Fantasy.

My bookgroup makes me read more widely although I wasn't impressed with some misery-guts called Kafka.........Could barely be arrised to finish that one. Asked if he'd made old bones and was told he'd offed himself not long after finishing it - wasn't surprised, frankly, it didn't seem the product of a healthy mind.

Righty, my travel diary calls - living life one day at a time via querty.

thriftwizard

Been thinking... please excuse a bit of a ramble round the more cluttered recesses of my mind!

This week's major task for me is foraging & preserving. I've been out blackberrying & got lots already, and have also been eyeing up the likely supply of crab apples & elderberries, and caught myself planning expeditions to collect them, when I suddenly thought, hang on, I don't need any more of them. I have a lifetime's supply of crab apple jelly already, as I'm the only one that likes it, and I still have elderberries in the freezer from last year. I don't want to make elderberry wine again; I can't be bothered to carry the neighbours home any longer. A tub or two to make some cordial in case of colds will be enough.

I love foraging & preserving, but like so many things, it's very easy to go too far & gather & store far too much. And I'm always mindful that life may not always be as easy as it is now, and that there are wonderful things that the supermarkets just don't do as they don't fit their business model; the last few days I've breakfasted on pancakes stuffed with blackberries & cream, and that is food fit for the Gods, which even Waitrose don't stock! But there's a balance to be struck; there's no point gathering more than I can eat, otherwise use, give away or store, and there's no point storing more than we will get through in the next year, even though that may not be such a good year for blackberries...

And it occurred to me that hoarding is kind of very much like that; we accumulate too much of a good thing, or lots of good things, and we can't let go of it/them in case we can't get any more, for some reason, however unlikely. Gathering & preserving, though, is just about hard-coded into us, to use a computing term; it's how we survived back when harvests could certainly not be taken for granted. So we're trying to overcome something that isn't, or didn't start off as, an aberration; it's part of who we are as humans. It's just bit overdeveloped in some of us...

A fairly random train of thought! But it makes it easier for me to understand how a very natural bit of behaviour has got quite out of hand, and hopefully I'll be able to get on top of it a bit better now.

GreyQueen

:T Yesss, thriftwizard, I have been thinking along those lines, too.

It's a torment to me that there is so much potentially preservable fruit around, for free, just hanging off trees and bushes. Rowan berries! Brambles! Apples! Rose hips! Plums! Acorns! Sloes! My Inner Squirrel wants to harvest, harvest, harvest. And walnuts and chestnuts, too.

But wait, I have no idea if I even like rowanberry preserve, although I could step outside and harvest some off the street trees to make a pot as an experiment. As for jam, I eat maybe 1-2 pots in 12 months. Not really a worthwhile use of my time to buy sugar and jam my own, is it?

Tiny freezer is chocka with allotment produce esp broad beans and blackcurrants, no room for blackberries in there, I don't have a dehydrator, as absolutely no room to keep one........etc etc.

But at the back of this list is Inner Squirrel fighting with Rational Me, who only has one mouth and one stomach and doesn't need to have oodles of jams and pickles to hand, and would only be in danger of wasting them if she did.

But yes, our species is hard-wired to gather and hoard, as that was how our ancestors survived long enough to be our ancestors. But they didn't have a world of manufactured goods around them which didn't decay and easily return to the natural environment and left a pretty small footprint compared to the muddle that even the poorest of us moderns can achieve with very little effort.

In the next few days, I shall shoot the potatoes out of the sack onto the floor to check they are all OK still (harvested 12th July) and lift the onions and put them away to be eaten in the next 6-8 months and may even bottle some beetroots.......lots of things to do on the allotment.

Last night, I added 5 items to the donation bag, so that's coming up full and will make Bag 5 of this week, although most of the stuff was from Mum's which I transported up here for the purposes of donating via gift-aid as parents aren't tax payers, plus the city has a bigger pool of potential buyers than their market town.

Righty, time to declutter some breakfast porridge into me, then off to face the new day. The sun is shining for the moment, at least.

silvasava

Oh thanks Thriftwizard & GQ - I've resisted chopping & peeling apples this year as my freezer still has produce from last year. I've given myself a mental kick up the bum NOT to hoard any more produce until next year so friends & neighbours are doing well out of me so far. I shall resist I shall resist. My poundland onions did well this year too but the garlic was pants for some reason! The chilli plant a freecycler gave me is producing loads so I will freeze some of those but DS1 has taken lots - bless him!
GQ - regarding the Sacred Object Status - that's what I have a lot of and what is going to be decluttered. I am trying to be very rational about it & so far so good with only one 'wobble' so far. I have a box with my Dad's & my Grandfathers medals - when I was looking at them I found one from the Boer War. Grandad was too young so it wasn't his & the name round the edge is one I don't recognise. Did a quick googly but nothing concrete so I'd like to investigate sometime & find out who this person was & what connection they have to my family - a little winter mystery coming on?
Hope everyone has a good day

Happygreen

@

thriftwizard wrote: »

Been thinking... please excuse a bit of a ramble round the more cluttered recesses of my mind!

This week's major task for me is foraging & preserving. I've been out blackberrying & got lots already, and have also been eyeing up the likely supply of crab apples & elderberries, and caught myself planning expeditions to collect them, when I suddenly thought, hang on, I don't need any more of them. I have a lifetime's supply of crab apple jelly already, as I'm the only one that likes it, and I still have elderberries in the freezer from last year. I don't want to make elderberry wine again; I can't be bothered to carry the neighbours home any longer. A tub or two to make some cordial in case of colds will be enough.

I love foraging & preserving, but like so many things, it's very easy to go too far & gather & store far too much. And I'm always mindful that life may not always be as easy as it is now, and that there are wonderful things that the supermarkets just don't do as they don't fit their business model; the last few days I've breakfasted on pancakes stuffed with blackberries & cream, and that is food fit for the Gods, which even Waitrose don't stock! But there's a balance to be struck; there's no point gathering more than I can eat, otherwise use, give away or store, and there's no point storing more than we will get through in the next year, even though that may not be such a good year for blackberries...

And it occurred to me that hoarding is kind of very much like that; we accumulate too much of a good thing, or lots of good things, and we can't let go of it/them in case we can't get any more, for some reason, however unlikely. Gathering & preserving, though, is just about hard-coded into us, to use a computing term; it's how we survived back when harvests could certainly not be taken for granted. So we're trying to overcome something that isn't, or didn't start off as, an aberration; it's part of who we are as humans. It's just bit overdeveloped in some of us...

A fairly random train of thought! But it makes it easier for me to understand how a very natural bit of behaviour has got quite out of hand, and hopefully I'll be able to get on top of it a bit better now.

thriftwizard, you are not alone .. Preserving is such a rewarding activity and we can see the fruits of our labour (excuse the pun :rotfl:). I stopped making jam 2 years ago as we are slowly eating our way through years of backlog. I've not found the space and energy yet to try wine yet. Chutneys and pickles are better in the respect as you can still give them to frineds and family when a few years old. I only picked a few brambles yesterday to put them in a cheesecake. This year most other berries went to the birds as I have no freezer space.
This is my topic for today - we have 2 freezers and both are always full. Things do get turned over but any gaps get filled straight away, it's a very annoying habit! I'll really have to work on that......
Yesterday I filed some of those important papers so it will be easier to keep up when the next lot snows in with the postman.
Today I'll wrap DD2's birthday presents, after her birthday I will have quite a bit more space in my room :rotfl:

GreyQueen

Hi silvasava, I have a friend who is very knowledgable about medals (dealer) who tells me that some people had lost their own medals and had purchased, secondhand, other people's medals. Ones which they were perfectly entitled to wear but which have someone else's name stamped around the rim.

It's theroetically possible that this may be the case and that the name might not even be one of your family names, even if not the main line.

Pal is out of town for a few days but when he comes back, I could ask him the best ways of researching a Boer War medal, if you'd like me to?

parsniphead

I'm very jealous of your onions GreyQueen. I have been trying for years and they never grow. I planted loads this year and they are still the same size as when I put them in. Everything else grows fine. Never mind, I think next year I will use the space for something else.

A day if baking today so will be dehoarding the cupboards for ingredients.

silvasava

Ooooh GQ - Yes please. I think the person may have a connection as the medal seems to be for someone in the Royal Scots & my Grandmother was Scottish so there may be a connection................;)

Working_and_Scheming

I have been lurking on here for a while under a different user name but would like to break the ice to say I also have a medal not belonging to family. Mine belonged to a soldier who lodged with my family near Woolwich Arsenal during the Great War. No idea if he survived but I can't throw it out as one day all may become clear.

I never considered myself as a hoarder. In fact I would swear blind I am totally the opposite but I have recently decanted a cupboard of antique linen which I had collected over many years when I had an old house and have donated it to the CS who deals in vintage items. I won't miss it as now I have a newish house so it would never have be used again.

GreyQueen

parsniphead wrote: »

I'm very jealous of your onions GreyQueen. I have been trying for years and they never grow. I planted loads this year and they are still the same size as when I put them in. Everything else grows fine. Never mind, I think next year I will use the space for something else..

Onions are very heavy feeders so it may be possible that your soil doesn't have enough organic matter in it, so that is potentially fixable with manure etc, or you might decide that onions are cheap enough and just grow something else.

silvasava wrote: »

Ooooh GQ - Yes please. I think the person may have a connection as the medal seems to be for someone in the Royal Scots & my Grandmother was Scottish so there may be a connection................;)

No worries, I should be able to catch up with the pal late on Friday and will ask and take some notes.

Some people keep the medals in the family, some donate them to regimental museums, some are collectables. Most are common enough to be not particularly valuable, but obviously there is the sentimental attachment if they are your ancestors. I'll see what the pal can tell me and post it to you - if you'd rather it was PM'd just say so.

Have just decluttered a bar of chocolate, which was very naughty of me, but I am weak-willed about some things. The cuppa to wash it down with will be most welcome, then I shall wash my hair with shampoo from the only shampoo bottle in the bathroom.

I guess this is a thread where that can be noted as a significant achievement.:rotfl: