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For Woman, For Life, For Liberty

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The last few months have been difficult. I’ve had a number of challenging life situations arise, My daughter having health issues, a friend’s death and seeing my compatriots and a country I love under fire. Hence the writing of this post is a personal one.

We are at an important juncture and moment in history and the tide can go either way. I’d like to know that I did everything I could to help turn the tide towards the good and towards lasting peace. With gruesome deaths, disappearances and violence inflicted on my compatriots every single day, silence is not an option.

I’ve seen messages of solidarity and support – for those, I say ‘Thank you’. But if anyone knows me they know that I am a practical lass and I always live by the motto of ‘actions speak louder than words’. I know others feel this way, but it’s hard to know what to do from afar.

Here are things that I think we can and must do to prevent more deaths and ensure the lives lost have not been in vain.

  • Write to your local MP, the PM, the foreign minister. This is one of the most effective things that you can do. Not many people know how to do this, or what to say, so I’ve pulled together a template letter with actions that activists are asking governments to take.
    While some sanctions have commenced, they are not nearly enough and more tangible, targeted actions need to be taken, so contacting your MP will maintain pressure to direct them towards this outcome.  
    Here is a link to help you find your electorate, then your local MP. This includes social media handles, and email addresses.
  • Stay informed The true story is getting barely any media coverage. If you really want to know what’s going on, I’ve found these sources to be helpful. It’s not comfortable reading, but to get the true picture of the scale and urgency it’s important to get up to date information. These are also reliable sources used by media and are volunteer run and independent. @Tasvir1500 @Hengaw @HRANA_English
    I’ve also summarised the ‘struggle’ to give you a snapshot of what this movement is about HERE.
  • Share and repost on social media and use the #MahsaAmini, #IranRevolution or any recent person’s name (like #MohsenShekari #Majdrezarahnavard). The aim is not to have this movement and issue disappear and to maintain focus and attention. Why would governments do anything if they don’t think anyone is watching?
    Despite the hard internet lockdown, inside the country people do see these messages and it helps them to know they are not alone.
  • Influence if you are in an influential role, or have contacts – think about what can be done? Whether you as a business, customer, employee or neighbour. I’d love to see more businesses and the creative arts community get behind this. I haven’t seen anything really happen in Australia, though many examples from overseas.
    For example I’ve approached a number of restaurants in my local area about #Cookforiran and not heard back (again, I’ve seen active participation from restaurants and the broader community out of Australia).
    I’ve spoken to property owners about using light and art on buildings to show support – they’re still mulling it over. If more people approached then something might happen.
    There are so many opportunities with things like Sydney Festival and World Pride. I’m sure there are other events and opportunities.
  • Rally There are numerous rallies happening around the country. If in Australia, CHECK OUT: for the latest. If overseas, no doubt there will be local rally organisers.
    This is an effective way of maintaining visibility and spreading the word. All the rallies I’ve attended are peaceful and there’s a strong sense of solidarity.

Sydney               Melbourne        Perth     Adelaide               Brisbane   

Choose one or all of the actions above. Every action does count and could help save a life.

Surviving Covid-19 Physical Isolation – Tips from an Eco-Mummy

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Yesterday I was looking at a note pad. It was my ‘to do’ list and aspirations for 2020. On the list were the usual things like eat well, exercise and ‘be in the moment’. Amongst the list was also my holiday plans for the year – camping, going to a coastal property and even skiing. Little was I to know that my world and that of everyone else on the planet was going to be turned upside down within a few months by a global pandemic.

I’ve spent the last five weeks at home with my kids and to be honest it’s been a whirlwind of setting up new routines and keeping my children happy and positive. It is only now that as I look to more weeks in physical isolation, that I start to chart a way forward to maintain the initial level of vigilance. The initial level was really a must – cases were going up – we were all scared and in shock.

Having come out of a horrific six months in Sydney plagued by a sense that the world was teetering on a precipice due to the devastating bushfires I already felt emotionally raw and carried a deep sense of sadness and anxiety. Many a time did I spend in tears at the state of the world and most of that really was about the sense that much of what I was seeing play out I knew would happen in a climate emergency situation. It really was the worst nightmare of many people who have worked and been active in environmental causes. I sensed like I’d failed future generations. That maybe I didn’t try hard enough.

So to so quickly have to deal with this health crisis was a shock. I have to say that the main thing I’ve been heartened by is that the government did take action and people listened. Well that is until I’m sensing this last week. We’ve breathed a sigh of relief as the curve in Australia has indeed flattened. What I am sensing now though is concerning, is that people are starting to not listen as much to the health advice. So my blog today is really about me sharing my tips on how to survive the next month or so as we try and keep the curve flattened and hopefully not have a second wave which will completely undo all of the hard work done to date.

So what’s kept me sane and the family fairly happy these last five weeks?

Stay Healthy

Now more than ever, it’s important to take care of ourselves. I start each working day with an early morning walk. It keeps me away from crowds, it’s quiet and tranquil and amazing to see the sun rise every day.

I also go running and do yoga. This is also extending to my children. Each of their school days (even if this is at home) starts with a walk around the block in the morning and afternoon. It’s a way of mentally opening and closing the school day. This is all in our local area which I know I’m lucky is a lovely part of the world surrounded by trees.

There are loads of online exercise classes if you can’t get outside, these are just some (please take care when exercising at home):

Yoga with Adrienne

Cosmic Yoga for Kids – highly recommended. My kids have been doing this for years and love it.

Julia Michaels Workouts

Yoga

Connect with nature

I love nature and one of the blessings of the recent shut downs has been that I have more time on the weekend where I can take my children on a bushwalk. We do a different bushwalk every week and through it we’ve really discovered places on our doorstep and within our neighbourhood. It’s been great. My kids started off by moaning a lot when we would want to go out and while tearing them away from another day in their pyjamas is still met with a groan, they’re actually getting a lot out of it. They’re taking photos and really exploring and looking deeply at nature, the trees, the bugs, leaves and branched and listening to the trickle of a creek or waterfall. This is one of my favourite things to do. I’ve even noticed the sound of birds and discovered that I have a blue tongue lizard that lives in my backyard. Things I probably would not have noticed had it not been due to me being forced to strip some excess from my life.

Bushlandar

On this day, she decided to wear her school uniform even though she was going to be at home

Be grateful

Yes, I have been anxious and worried. The thought of anyone in my family being taken away by the horrible virus is terrifying. The thought that this can go on for years and the economic impacts, social and emotional impacts on peopled including my children is horrible. Still, every day there is something to be grateful for. Simply still breathing and being here for me is a reason to celebrate. So every night at the dinner table, my family and I talk about what we’re grateful for. It’s a really important part of finding something positive and a silver lining even in the most terrible circumstances.

On this day, she decided to wear her school uniform even though she was going to be at home

Nightly dance off

Another fun thing we’ve instituted in my family is a nightly dance off. We put on a happy and upbeat song and dance around. No matter how angry, emotional or terrible a day we may have feel like we’ve had. The act of coming together and dancing lifts our moods. I really recommended it. We even take turns choosing the song. Through this I’ve introduced my kids to a bit of 90’s hip hop, Madonna (early Madonna) and Stevie Wonder.

Be kind

I have a few old folk in my neighbourhood. My youngest daughter decided to write them cards and drop it in their letterbox. Hoe lovely it was to receive a reply and in one case some goodies as a thank you. I know they’re appreciated knowing that we’re looking out for them and it’s a good thing to teach to be kind to those that are vulnerable and may need help. If you can reach out to someone please do. Here are also some organisations that can help you connect with someone in need:

Kindness Pandemic

Love in the time of Covid-19

#ViralKindness

We really are in this together.

Kindness
On this day, she decided to wear her school uniform even though she was going to be at home

Waste Free Living – Guest Blog

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It’s very cool when your 11 year old comes to you and you brainstorm a Personal Interest Project. My son is very interested in technology so we thought creating an APP would be a good personal interest project and of course I had to put my eco-mummy twist on it, so the APP became about how to create a waste free life.

My son researched and wrote the content for the APP and spent afternoons with my brothers putting it into code.  I thought ;d share his insights – so today, he is my guest blogger!

Live Waste Free 

Waste is responsible for 3% of global carbon emissions (https://www.c2es.org/content/international-emissions/), releasing methane which is a stronger greenhouse gas than Carbon dioxide.  There is so much that we can do to eliminate this – and I’m here to show you how you can live a waste free life to help save out planet!

About our waste 

Waste composition

Food waste 

APPLE!

What is it?

Food waste is food that is thrown out, lost or uneaten.  It makes up over half of all waste disposed of at landfill. Wasting food is not only bad for the environment, but its also bad for your hip pocket. Australians throw out around $3,500 worth of food every year!

Want to have zero food waste?

  • There’s so much you can do to avoid food waste. Here are my tips:
  • Buy only what you’re going to eat!  People buy too much food and it goes off – better not buy too much.  Take a list and stick to it 🙂
  • If you do buy food and it starts to go funny, there are recipes that will help you use it up instead of throwing it out. Check out: https://foodwastefeast.com/recipes/ for some ideas.
  • Store your food properly. You can freeze things like bananas and berries and make shakes for example.  Store thing in air tight containers to keep them longer.

Also check out these websites to find out more about avoiding food waste and take the zero food waste challenge:

Recycle

Once you’ve done what you can to avoid and use up all your food, anything left over should be put in a worm farm. Luckily, you can make this yourself at home: LINK

Plastic 

transparent-plastic-bottle-500x500

What is it?

Plastic is a really useful product. It’s light, flexible and doesn’t break. The problem though is that a lot gets thrown out and ends up in our oceans, rivers, streams and bushland which causes pollution.

Australians love plastic so much that we use more than 10 million plastic bags a day and over 85% of soft plastics ends up in landfill!

Thankfully there are so many things that we can do to reduce our use of plastic.

Want to have zero plastic waste? 

  • Firstly you should avoid plastic by using a reusable water bottle; and taking your own containers and bags to fill up at the supermarket;
  • Use beeswax wraps or lunch boxes instead of cling wrap for your lunch;
  • Where you can, reuse your bags and containers as much as you can; and
  • Take your soft plastic waste (wrappers, bags etc) to the supermarket for recycling (like some Coles and Woolworths stores accept this).

Check out these websites for more information and take the zero plastic waste challenge!

Paper and cardboard 

What is it?

Paper and cardboard are made of trees.  It also uses water and energy to produce.  In fact, Australians use around 230 Kg of paper each year (https://waster.com.au/recycling-facts-australia/).  Luckily Paper and cardboard waste should really be a thing of the past.  Here’ what you can do:

  • Avoid using paper – work on line, double side print and where you do have waste, use the paper as scrap paper;
  • Recycling paper can have loads of other benefits too. Recycling 1 tonne of paper saves: 13 trees, 2.5 barrels of oil, 4m3 of landfill, 31,780 litres of water and 4,100 kilowatts of electricity.

Here are some other tips:

Garden waste 

Green-Wallpaper-11

What is it? 

My family has a big garden, so all the leaves, the grass clipping and trimmed branches created garden waste. When this ends up in landfill it creates methane which is a greenhouse gas.  Garden waste though can easily be returned back to the garden as mulch or compost.

Here are some ways that you can have zero garden waste:

  • Compost, compost, compost! here is how you can make your own compost bin: Compost

Electronic waste 

Circuit board. Electronic computer hardware technology. Motherboard digital chip. Tech science EDA background. Integrated communication processor. Information CPU engineering 3D background

I’m really excited because I just got my first mobile phone and for school will get my first laptop.  While I’m excited, I’m also aware that electronic waste is a really big problem.  In Australia, there are more unused phones than people in Australia and unfortunately we only recycle about 10% of our old phones.

Unfortunately a lot of electronic waste ends up in poorer countries like Uganda, China and India where people including children go through them to get out precious metals.  These areas become really polluted and it affects people’s health.

Electronic waste can also include other things like TVs, printers, DVD players, fridges and other electronic appliances.

What can you do?

  • Think twice before buying electronics. Do you really need the latest phone or laptop?
  • Donate – but please don;t dump. There are charities that will accept electronics in good condition;
  • Sell it – Gumtree and Freecycle are a good place to start;
  • Repair it – find a mobile or electronic repair centre near you;
  • Recycle: Contact your council to find out if they take electronic waste or find a drop off spot for your old electronics: https://techcollect.com.au/;
  • Take it back to the maunfacturer. Some manufacturers have a free return service. Call yours to find out.

So as you start the new year – remember to take the zero waste challenge and help save the planet.

By JayBro

 

 

Plastic Free July – the finish line

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HAKUNA+MATATA!

(Source: https://www.futurelandfill.org/share/hakuna-matata)

Plastic is a visual and insidious material and source of pollution. It is something that seems to be uniting young and old to try and take action. In fact while Australia continues to be an embarrassing laggard when it comes to climate action, Scott Morrison and the COAG (Council of Australian Governments) announced a ban on plastic, paper, glass and tyres with a $20 million fund to boost national recycling. This is welcomed especially following recent turnbacks of our waste in Indonesia and Malaysia.
With this in mind, it’s been an interesting time to participate in Plastic Free July. This month long pledge is now officially over. The last week saw us staring at the finish line in anticipation. Would our plastic free life style carry on to August and onward? I’m afraid not so much. We learnt a lot. About how prevalent plastic is in our every day life and how convenience has made it hard to give up. Despite that though, we are determined to continue to try and carry as much of the plastic free ethos beyond July. But in order for us to be able to avoid the use of this material and the environmental impacts of its production in the first place, a broader societal shift needs to occur led by supermarkets.
Are our major supermarkets willing to take this challenge on though? Let’ check out the Coles ‘Sustainability’ page: https://www.coles.com.au/corporate-responsibility/sustainability/environment
We understand the important roles packaging plays in maintaining food safety, supporting product longevity and reducing food waste. At the same time, we are committed to reducing our impact on the environment and have implemented a Sustainable Packaging Policy.
This Policy extends to plastic packaging and plastic bags with a focus on recycling infrastructure to recycle these plastics, rather than try and avoid them. With the recent cases of turnback of plastics, it’s unknown whether this policy is even practical and achieving its stated aim.

Coles little shop

Let’s now take a look at Woolworths which has a lovely ‘sustainability’ page: https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/discover/sustainability
Our plan to tackle the plastic problem is focused on eliminating plastic where possible and to work towards ‘closing the loop’ by encouraging recycling through design, technology and clear communication to our customers.
The Woolworths Policy and its actions are certainly fairly comprehensive and while it isn’t easy to avoid plastic, reducing unnecessary use should be an absolute must.
Therefore it’s with disappointment that both supermarkets, in the month of Plastic Free July, decided that it was a super idea to have silly toy giveaways – both aimed to children and the pester power that they have. This is certainly something that I never buy into, but that doesn’t always stop extended family from doing the same. We now have a number of Lion King Ooshies in our house. This despite all that I tried to teach my children about plastic and ways to avoid it in the last month.
While the ooshies are in our house (not many), I’m pretty sure this will be one of the last time these cheap plastic toys make their way into my home. At least the ooshies are giving me a chance to really drive home the message that unless my kids plan on keeping these toys for life, they are likely to end up in landfill or polluting the ocean and after all we did in July – won’t that be a shame? It is hard though when I must be about the only parent at the school to hold these views, as I see many children with bags and bags of ooshies at pick up time.
So it is with interest that I observe the intersect between environmental issues and science with art because artists will be able to clearly communicate in a creative way, what many scientists have failed to do for so long. In the case of the ooshies, this has been through the Future Landfill initiative which is using cheeky art to make a point about the pointlessness of these cheap promotions.
So if there’s one last tip that I can give – it is that, while it may be hard, it isn’t impossible to significantly reduce our plastic use and it all starts with a simple ‘no’. No, to taking a ‘free’ ooshie or other cheap toy giveaway, no to plastic waste, no to takeaway cups, cutlery and containers and no to plastic water bottles. Our world really does depend on it.

Plastic Free July – Week 1

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Last weekend, I excitedly decided to jump into Plastic Free July and do so with my family.  I mean – really, how hard can it be?

Very hard. I feel as though I have spent the first week in shock. Shock by the realisation that plastic is literally everywhere and changing  that is going to be really really hard.  I’ve had many failures this week. Here are a few:

  • Caving into hunger when offered a little pack of cheese and crackers;
  • Milk – where can you easily find an alternative to plastic?
  • Same goes for bread;
  • Bin liners. Despite seeing things online about paper lined bins, I am not going there yet;
  • Italian chocolate in its wrapper!

Despite these failures though, I am feeling good.  It feels as though my house is going through some sort of detox.  I have however spent the first week finishing off food items that had plastic containers and I’m not sure how to replace them all.

I sent my poor husband off to practice Plastic Free July during the weekly shop.  The result? The shop took twice a long because of the to-ing and fro-ing between different shops (baker, butcher, greengrocer etc) and cost more.

It’s also going to take some more practice to buy some things where we’re relying on others’ participation. For example, last Friday I made my kids chicken and was feeling pretty fab to ditch the pre-packages by going to the butcher. When I got there though, I had to explain that I didn’t want the chicken in a plastic bag after which I was told that I could take in my own container. I returned with the container, only to have the butcher take the chicken out using a plastic bag! so it kind of defeated the purpose of the container! It honestly was a bit of a comedy routine.

Even though we went shopping yesterday, our fridge is nearly empty because so many things that we buy come in plastic (no berries for July and no cherry tomatoes!).  While we’re trying to figure a lot of things out, we’ve also found some things are easier to get than we thought.

For example, I’ve discovered a shop in Lane Cove called ‘Source’. It has everything from different types of oils, to a wall of different types of chocolate, flour, legumes, cereals, shampoo, cleaning products  and soap.  While I’ve  been there sometimes from time to time, I will probably return more even after July.

For week 2, I’m going to follow some of the tips my son put together:

  • Bring your own shopping bag (also your own container if buying things like meats, olives etc);
  • Don’t buy bottled water;
  • Bring own KeepCup to the coffee shop;
  • Don’t use single use straws;
  • Don’t use plastic cutlery;
  • Try to avoid food in plastic wrap (easier said than done. I have no idea how I’m going to buy cheese!);
  • Carry your own box for leftover food;
  • Join the Earn and Learn program (in NSW);
  • Buy bread without a bag or with a paper bag;
  • Clean with vinegar and water;
  • Use a bar of soap instead of a plastic dispenser;
  • Use a stainless steel lunchbox;
  • Instead of getting takeaway smoothies, make your own!
  • Make your own icy pole instead of buying ice cream; and
  • Don’t use plastic plates.

With that – i thought I’d sign off with some ways to avoid some of the tough plastics like bin liners:

Plastic Free July

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science-081612-004-617x416

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending The Climate Reality Project’s Climate Reality Leadership Corps training along with 800 other like-minded people. It was three days of meeting and listening to inspiring people – all with the aim of tackling global heating.

I have always been quite green and have been writing about my journey as an eco-mummy for a few years now.  While I was there though, I met someone who also said they really cared about plastic pollution in the oceans. She said it like she needed to choose which issue was more urgent and pressing and thereby worth her time and dedication. Then it struck me how both issues are so inter-related.

The process of making plastic is quite complex, as I recently discovered when trying to explain it to a group of year 3 students (part of my Climate Reality presentation advocacy). One thing that isn’t so complex though is the base material that goes into making plastic – fossil fuels (crude oil and gas).  It releases many tonnes of CO2 and other pollutants into the atmosphere during its production and uses energy too, to manufacture. So all in all a very fossil fuel hungry material.  In fact, plastic manufacturing is estimated to use 8% of global yearly oil production.  Despite all of the renewables coming online in the last year, the significant increase in plastic production has been blamed for the increase in CO2 emissions in 2018.

But plastic is fantastic isn’t it? It’s durable, light and doesn’t break.  It’s so flexible that life would seem almost impossible without it.  We love plastic so much that the World Economic Forum estimates that plastic production has sky rocketed from 16.5 million tonnes in 1964 to 343 million tonnes in 2014 with predictions that this will double by 2036!  Since 1950, humans have made 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic and despite the fact that plastic is durable and reusable, most has been disposed, so we keep producing more and more.  I remember travelling in Cuba as part of my year of backpacking before children and seeing plastic bags hanging out on clothes lines to dry. Obviously Cubans saw some value in these bags in that they reused them. The rest of the world though is in an unrelenting cycle of throwing things out.

So where does all of this plastic that is thrown out end up? Very little is recycled and most (79%) ends up in either landfill or the world’s oceans (8 million tonnes every year) slowly breaking down.  It takes plastic between 500 – 1000 years to break down.  That is many millions of tonnes of plastic waste – everywhere for millennia.  When plastic does break down into micro-plastics, then where does it go? Likely in animals and ultimately us!

plastic ocean

When thinking of plastic and plastic waste – also consider that many ‘rich’ countries offload this problem to the developing world where environmental laws are more lax and the problem is ‘out of sight’.  The health impact on those communities from our waste, is shameful. Some countries like China, the Philippines and Malaysia are wising up and sending the waste back.

Going back to the Climate Reality training conversation, I was struck by what Natalie Isaac from 1 Million women said: Don’t just talk – you must live your values in your everday life.  Now I am generally good about my plastic use and I’ve resisted going ‘full hog’ in eradicating plastic in my life because – well I’m a busy working mum trying to live life on a budget of sorts. So the idea of going to 5 different shops to get my weekly groceries doesn’t have much appeal. I have seen articles about people with a little jar showing how much waste they’ve produced in a year and have rolled my eyes about the improbability and impracticality of it all!

BUT, when I went to my daughter’s class to present on climate action, I used plastic as a way for kids to make a difference because through this action, the benefits are two-fold: reduce plastic waste and reduce carbon emissions.

After the talk a few days ago, I got thinking about my own home. Luckily Plastic Free July: https://www.plasticfreejuly.org/ is about to kick off and my family and I have decided to participate. We’ve taken the challenge to avoid single use plastic packaging and target takeaway items.  I have no idea how we’re going to go, but I will share our ups and downs every week.

I encourage you to also take the challenge and to get you started here are some resources that can help:

For me, I have started! I went to a wholefood store in Lane Cove (Source) and stocked up on some snacks for the kids that I can put in their lunch box.  Keep an eye out for my weekly blog where I’ll share tips and an uncensored take on how we’re going as a family.  Please join me in taking the challenge.

plastic free

Citizen Science

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forest_school-2.jpg
Source: https://www.naturespath.com/en-us/blog/what-are-forest-schools/

Life is taking me on quite the busy journey at the moment. Raising three kids and work keeps me all too busy. I have however had this topic on my mind for quite some time and finally have decided to sit down and write.  Every day I am reading a terrible statistic and report about the state of our world. Today’s one was about the crazy rate of deforestation. Apparently there is one football field worth of forest lost every second.  With all the football watching going on right now, it should be an easy one to visualise. So let’s repeat that one – slowly. One football field of forest lost. Every second.

As with many reports on the environment, it is very easy to feel hopeless and overwhelmed.  While action to reverse is needed urgently, we need to also look at what is possible in our neck of the woods – excuse the pun.  One of the areas I feel strongly about, is the need to re-connect with nature.  There are many benefits to this, from improved mental health and wellbeing to community connections to re-learning lost skills. It goes without saying that this will lead to improved biodiversity outcomes.

One of the ways to re-connect with nature is through Citizen Science. This essentially means that anyone can be a scientist and that we can all work to help document flora and fauna in our local area.  This helps scientists monitor and track information, and gets the community out and about looking closely at what is in their neighbourhoods.

This participatory approach to science is a great way to get people involved in their local community and a wonderful introduction to science for children.

Many many years ago, I worked on a project called the Willoughby Wildlife Watch project which in essence was a citizen science program. It asked residents to report wildlife that they saw. This was then included in a state-wide Atlas, thereby creating a good baseline and allowing monitoring of wildlife, particularly in urban areas.

Over the years, amateur scientists have become involved in science.  In fact amateur astronomers have made many discoveries including finding a scar on Jupiter and even finding Uranus (William Herschel, 1781).  It’s estimated that these volunteer scientists provide in-kind contributions valued at about $2.5 billion a year! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_science).

There are different ways that you can get involved.  You can contact your local Council to see if they have any programs available where you can participate, or you can check out some other organisations like:

While winter might be time where we all want to get indoors – it might also be a really interesting time to be out there checking out plants and animals in your area.

Urban Farming in the ‘Burbs

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Life sure has been busy of late. Three young children and their activities along with work keeps me super occupied.  I have however found the time recently to finally realise one of the items on my home ‘to do’ list. It may have taken a while. Like a really long while, but finally our home has welcomes four chickadees!  Our hens joined our family about 4 weeks ago.

My children have had some experience with chickens are part of ‘chook chat’ at their school. The four chickens at school are cared for on a roster by students, mine included.  Students collect the eggs and every now and then do a big cook up. I love this way of engaging with the kids.

So with the ice broken, I decided to get the ball rolling at home and get our own chooks.  It’s taken about a year from the time I bought the coop – to constructing the run – to finally getting to the exciting part – making the trip to a nursery to buy our hens.  It’s been worth the wait though.  Pepper, Caramel, Blackie and Tiny Ninja are now well and truly at home with us.

After some good tips from a work friend, we ended up buying two Australopes and two Isa Browns from New Leaf Nursery: http://www.newleafnursery.com.au/ They were especially selected by the chook whisperer there for our family.  The good thing about the Australope hens is that they lay eggs throughout their lives.  The Isa Browns we bought because of their good nature.

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So far all are pretty friendly, though not super friendly because we’re not at the stage where they come to you and sit by your feet. We’ve had the occasional toe and leg pecking, but after holding them and spending more time with them they seem to be coming around. They especially love me because I’m usually the source of food!

Now, if a garden of veggies and some fruit and now chickens wasn’t enough, last week I discovered a new mysterious bird.  At first I thought it looked like a cross between a quail and a duck. After many misses in trying to photograph it, the bird ended stuck on the trampoline.  After taking some great photos, I sent them to my local Council for identification. They confirmed, that it was not a quail, but a Bush Turkey and while I am a friend of wildlife, I am not so sure about having a bird make itself at home in the garden I have spent some year building up.  Time will tell whether it decided to stay. So far the hens are wary, but the Turkey doesn’t seem fazed.

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Now with my garden project pretty much complete, I can sit back and enjoy the years of work and planning that’s gone into my very own urban farm.   Or maybe not!  Next on my ‘to do’ list: ‘bug hotel’/ native beehive and possibly a frog pond. ..watch this space!

My tips for keeping chickens (so far):

  • Choose a spot in the garden with some sun, but not too much;
  • Talk to your local Council about what their requirement are. Besides not keeping a whole lots of hens and telling my neighbours as a courtesy, my Council didn’t have any specific requirements;
  • Buy the hens and move them in together at the same time, that way you don’t have any problems later with introducing a new hen to the flock;
  • They LOVE grain and get quickly get fussy with food if given the good stuff all the time. So balance out some boring food with something exciting;
  • Get them used to you straight away by spending time with them. Mine aren’t too excited about being held and to be honest I’m still getting used to them too, but now we’re all getting used to each other; and
  • Get the kids involved in feeding them and enjoy!

Building community

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What is community and how to do build one? Community can mean different things to different people. It can mean a group of people within a geographic location, or it can mean a group of people with common interests.  Whichever way you look at it, more and more it seems that we’re losing that sense of community connection.

Even me, though I have good contact with a few neighbours, my attempts at building a greater sense of community with the neighbourhood have failed.  My planter boxes on the nature strip have mostly become an extension of my own home garden with only one neighbour taking the odd vegetable every now and then. That one neighbour did also leave me a lovely Christmas gift and card, which was super sweet.

But not one to give up on a challenge, I decided to host a ‘Neighbour Day’ afternoon tea and involve my children.  As I have some elderly neighbours, I thought it would be a good opportunity for my children to meet some of the older folk, and for my neighbours to meet some new people.  You never know when they may need some help and it would be good for them to know that someone’s looking out for them should they need help.

There is a lot of talk about disconnection. In an age where we are more connected than ever through electronic means, the face-to-face connection is sometimes lacking. The reasons for this are varied. Time is usually the main one. I for example have three children, but have some time to think about these things and chat to neighbours when I bump into them because I work part-time.

M cutting

This sense of connection and talking to neighbours and getting to know them is what I want to instil in my children, which is why I wanted to get them as involved as I could in the Neighbour Day event.

My daughter designed a fun invite which she delivered with her brother to some neighbours. The results were a little mixed, we did manage to get a few RSVP’s, but we weren’t overwhelmed with the response.

Delivering

 

We decided to make an afternoon of it anyway. Together we put together a lovely afternoon tea with a few neighbours also contributing. The result was neighbours meeting for the first time and a great afternoon spent between neighbouring children. We talked travel and possums (we all share the possum problem J) and favourite recipes.

afternoon tea

This is something that I’ll definitely try again!

If you want to get involved in your local area, contact your local Council. They usually have a lot of information on local community groups, volunteer opportunities and local events.

Otherwise, host a BBQ or afternoon tea.  The Neighbour Day website has some suggestions too: http://www.neighbourday.org/  they have lots of information, kits and even recipes to share.

Clean and green cleaning

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I feel as though I never have time for my Blog anymore.  If life with two kids wasn’t busy enough, with three young kids, it is off the rails. I feel that I spend a lot of my time trying to stay afloat.  Added to that is my professional job which is a source of inspiration and contentment, but also at times stress.  Also I have little time for my garden (which is suffering this summer), let alone quality time with my husband or relaxation. To ease the ‘time’ factor in my life, I have thought about getting in a cleaner or other help.  One of the things that stops me about a cleaner is my high eco-standard.  Ever since I did my Palm Oil Detox, I’ve been using natural cleaning products and I’m nervous about the chemicals that might be used by a professional cleaner. For now, I’m opting to keep my natural cleaning standards and do it myself.  The reasons to use green cleaning products are simple:

  • They’re not toxic to the health of my family or the planet;
  • They’re cheap; and
  • They’re simple and effective.

What do I use? There are basically two ingredients that I use the most, though I do also use ‘Natural’ cleaning products from the supermarket (mostly to clean my toilet and sometime the shower recess when it gets a bit too icky!):

  1. Bicarbonate of soda;
  2. White vinegar.

 

Bicarbonate of soda

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Discovered in ancient Egypt, this sodium compound which is called Natron was used in the mummification process.  Over time, European chemists discovered that another form of pearlash was effective in helping the baking process.  In 1791 a French Chemist Nicolas LeBlank turned common salt (sodium chloride) into soda ash (sodium carbonate).  This was later developed into sodium bicarbonate in the USA.

Bicarb soda is like this miracle ingredient used in so many things. I’ve used it to make natural toothpaste I’ve done this by dipping my toothpaste and then brushing. The taste isn’t the usual minty taste that I’m used to, but trust me, my teeth were super clean and shiny afterwards!

My mum’s used it as deodorant and she swears by it. I’ve not tried this though. I have also heard of people that don’t wash their hair with shampoo, and instead do a ‘dry shampoo’ using bicarb soda.

For cleaning I use bicarb soda a number of different ways.  I add a little water and make a paste. I use a toothbrush and clean the grouting in between tiles in my bathroom and to generally clean the bathroom and kitchen sink. I also use it to keep my pots and pans looking good.

Bicarb soda is also great at keeping things smelling fresh. There has been instances where my fridge will get very smelly. All I do is either keep a packet of bicarb soda opened in the fridge or even some fresh coffee grounds.

 

White vinegar

 

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You can buy big containers of cheap white vinegar in most supermarkets. This is my secret weapon around the house. I use it to clean the tiles in my bathrooms, my shower recess, windows and pretty much any surface.

I often add some bicarb soda and vinegar to a load of washing and it brightens up my clothes.

My other tips is to pour a little bicarb soda down the drain and then add vinegar – watch the frothing action, then leave for half an hour and come back and pour boiling water down the drain. A wonderful way to keep your drains clean and fresh without the use of harsh chemicals.

Both of these products can be bought so easily and are really effective and cheap. You also won’t feel so horrible and congested afterwards and your hip pocket and the planet will thank you for it.